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      Supreme court allows Trump officials to cut research millions in anti-DEI push

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      The Trump administration can slash hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of research funding in its push to cut federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, the supreme court decided on Thursday.The split court lifted a judge’s order blocking $783m worth of cuts made by the National Institutes of Health to align with Donald Trump’s priorities.The court split 5-4 on the decision. Chief Justice John Roberts was among those who would not have allowed the cuts, along with the court’s three liberal justices. The high court did keep the Trump administration anti-DEI guidance on future funding blocked with a key vote from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, however.The decision marks the latest supreme court win for Trump and allows the administration to forge ahead with canceling hundreds of grants while the lawsuit continues to unfold. The plaintiffs, including states and public-health advocacy groups, have argued that the cuts will inflict “incalculable losses in public health and human life”.The justice department, meanwhile, has said funding decisions should not be “subject to judicial second-guessing” and efforts to promote policies referred to as DEI can “conceal insidious racial discrimination”.The lawsuit addresses only part of the estimated $12bn of NIH research projects that have been cut, but in its emergency appeal, the Trump administration also took aim at nearly two dozen other times judges have stood in the way of its funding cuts.Solicitor general D John Sauer said judges shouldn’t be considering those cases under an earlier supreme court decision that cleared the way for teacher-training program cuts that the administration also linked to DEI. He says they should go to federal claims court instead.Five conservative justices agreed, and Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a short opinion in which he criticized lower-court judges for not adhering to earlier high court orders. “All these interventions should have been unnecessary,” Gorsuch wrote.The plaintiffs, 16 Democratic state attorneys general and public-health advocacy groups had unsuccessfully argued that research grants are fundamentally different from the teacher-training contracts and could not be sent to claims court.They said that defunding studies midway though halts research, ruins data already collected and ultimately harms the country’s potential for scientific breakthroughs by disrupting scientists’ work in the middle of their careers.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a lengthy dissent in which she criticized both the outcome and her colleagues’ willingness to continue allowing the administration to use the court’s emergency appeals process.“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: there are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins,” she wrote, referring to the fictional game in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.In June, US district judge William Young in Massachusetts had ruled that the cancellations were arbitrary and discriminatory. “I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” Young, an appointee of Republican president Ronald Reagan, said at a hearing.He later added: “Have we no shame?”An appeals court had left Young’s ruling in place. More

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      Trump news at a glance: 55m US visa holders in potential limbo in fresh immigration crackdown

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      The Trump administration is reviewing the records of more than 55 million US visa holders for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules, in a significant expansion of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.The state department said that all of the foreigners who now hold valid US visas are subject to “continuous vetting” for any indication that they could be ineligible for the document, including those already admitted into the country. Should such evidence come to light, the visa would be revoked and, if the visa holder were in the United States, they would be subject to deportation.Here are the key stories at a glance.Trump administration to review 55m US visa holders for potential rule violationsTrump officials will review records of more than 55 million US visa holders in the latest expansion on the US president’s immigration crackdown.It follows an announcement by the Trump administration on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.“The state department revokes visas any time there are indications of a potential ineligibility, which includes things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization,” a department spokesperson said.Read the full storyCourt throws out $500m civil fraud penalty against Donald TrumpA New York appeals court has thrown out the massive civil fraud penalty against Donald Trump, ruling on Thursday in the state’s lawsuit accusing him of exaggerating his wealth.The decision, which was not unanimous, came seven months after the Republican returned to the White House. A panel of five judges in New York’s mid-level appellate division said the verdict, which stood to cost Trump more than $515m and rock his real estate empire, was “excessive”.Read the full storyPentagon asks civilian employees to aid Ice deportationsThe Pentagon is recruiting civilian employees to join Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign and asking staff to sign up for deployments to immigration enforcement facilities across the United States.Read the full storyCalifornia moves closer to gerrymandered maps after key measures passCalifornia lawmakers on Thursday approved a sweeping redistricting proposal aimed at redrawing the state’s congressional boundaries and creating five potential new Democratic US House seats – a retaliatory strike against the gerrymandered maps Republicans in Texas are working to pass at the behest of Donald Trump.Read the full storyJD Vance previews defense of Trump’s bill for midterms in GeorgiaThe US vice-president, JD Vance, previewed in Georgia on Thursday the lines of attack candidates will use to defend the president’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act in the midterms next year, calling it “the biggest tax cut for families that this country has ever seen”.Read the full storyNew details emerge on Trump tariffs for EUWashington will not lower steep tariffs on European cars until Brussels has introduced legislation to reduce its own tariffs on US exports, maintaining pressure on the EU’s automotive industry.While the Trump administration has agreed to lower the current 27.5% US tariffs on European cars and car parts to 15%, details of a framework trade deal published on Thursday revealed the terms and conditions.Read the full storyTrump officials urge Fed to remove governor The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Federal Reserve to remove governor Lisa Cook, after the economist declared she had “no intention of being bullied” into stepping down.Read the full storyJudge rules ex-Trump lawyer unlawfully serving as US attorney in New JerseyA federal judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.In his order disqualifying Habba from prosecuting three defendants who challenged her appointment, chief US district judge Matthew Brann wrote: “The Executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habba’s appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Donald Trump gave a speech to law enforcement at a park police HQ in Washington DC after announcing he would join federal officers and the military on the city’s streets as part of the forced takeover of the local police force.

      Trump intends to leave Russia and Ukraine to organize a meeting between their leaders without directly playing a role for now, according to administration officials familiar with the situation, taking a step back from the negotiations to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

      The president again called for the release of a former election clerk in Colorado who was convicted for her role in breaching election data in a quest to find fraud, threatening he would take “harsh measures” if she was not let out of prison.

      With Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” set to alter how families and students finance higher education starting in July 2026, a new survey suggests the majority of college students expect to be affected by the bill.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 20 August 2025. More

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      Judge rules ex-Trump lawyer unlawfully serving as US attorney in New Jersey

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      A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.In his order disqualifying Habba from prosecuting three defendants who challenged her appointment, chief US district judge Matthew Brann wrote: “The Executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habba’s appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves.“Along the way, it has disagreed with the Judges of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and criminal defendants in that District about who should or may lead the office. Faced with the question of whether Ms Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not.”The judge found that Habba’s term as the interim US attorney ended in July, and the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role without getting confirmation from the US Senate did not follow procedures required by federal law.Brann said he is putting his order on hold pending an appeal.Habba, who unsuccessfully defended Trump in his New York fraud trial, also served as a frequent campaign surrogate for him in 2024.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAfter being appointed to the interim role in March, she said the state could “turn red”, a rare overt political expression from a prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.She then brought a trespassing charge, which was eventually dropped, against Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, stemming from a confrontation with federal agents during his visit to an immigration detention center. Habba later charged a Democratic representative, LaMonica McIver, with assault for resisting the detention of the mayor in the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. McIver denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.In late July, when Habba’s four-month temporary appointment was coming to a close, it became clear that she would not get support from home state senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, meaning her chances of Senate approval were nil.Trump then withdrew her nomination, and federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career prosecutor when Habba’s temporary appointment lapsed. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, retaliated by firing that prosecutor and moved to re-install Habba as acting US attorney.Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      California legislature approves first of three redistricting bills in response to Texas gerrymandering

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      The California legislature on Thursday began advancing a series of three bills designed to redraw congressional boundaries and create five potential new Democratic US House seats.The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.The nation’s two most populous – and ideologically opposed – states were racing on parallel tracks toward consequential redistricting votes, potentially within hours of each other. As Democrats in Sacramento worked to advance a legislative package that would put their “election rigging response act” before voters in a special election this fall, Republicans in Austin were nearing a final vote on their own gerrymandering pursuit.Democratic state lawmakers erupted in applause, when the assembly passed the constitutional amendment to allow the redrawing in a 57-20 vote, sending it next to the state senate. On the other side of the capitol, the state senate passed a bill on a 30-9 party-line vote laying out the proposed congressional maps Democrats hope voters will accept in the November special election.The chambers were debating the legislative package simultaneously, with Democrats up against a Friday deadline to give the secretary of states’s office enough time to get the measure on the November ballot.The state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who has led the redistricting push, intends to sign the bill as soon as it arrives on his desk.“We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism. And today, we give every Californian the power to say no,” said the Democratic assembly speaker Robert Rivas, in floor remarks before the vote. “To say no to Donald Trump’s power grab and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”Approval by the Texas senate, which is expected as early as Thursday, would conclude a dramatic showdown with the state’s outnumbered Democratic lawmakers whose two-week boycott captured national attention and set in motion a coast-to-coast redistricting battle.The California plan is designed to flip as many as five Republican-held seats in California – the exact number of additional GOP seats Trump has said he is “entitled to” in Texas.“This is a new Democratic party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,” Newsom said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. “And we’re going to fight fire with fire.”The redistricting tit-for-tat is an extraordinary deviation from the norm. Traditionally, states redraw congressional maps once a decade based on census data, with both the Texas and California maps originally intended to last through 2030.The California state legislature, where Democrats have a supermajority, is expected to easily approve new congressional maps despite sharp Republican objections. Newsom’s signature would send the measure to the ballot in a special election this November.Before Thursday’s vote, California Republicans pleaded with their Democratic colleagues to oppose what they derisively called a “Gavinmander”.“The problem when you fight fire with fire is you burn it all down,” James Gallagher, the state assembly Republican leader, said at a news conference.Initially, Democratic lawmakers said the changes would only take effect in response to a gerrymander by a Republican state – a condition that would be met when the Texas legislatures sends the maps to the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, for his promised signature. But they amended the language on Thursday to remove any reference to a trigger, arguing it was no longer necessary now Texas has moved ahead.A Texas senate committee approved the GOP plan on Thursday morning, setting up a vote on final passage in the chamber, which was scheduled to reconvene that evening.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCalifornia was acting after a dramatic showdown in Austin, where Democratic lawmakers left the state earlier this month to delay a GOP redistricting plan pushed by the president. They returned only after California moved forward with its counterproposal. When they returned, some were assigned police minders and forced to sign permission slips before leaving the capitol. Several spent the night in the chamber in protest before Wednesday’s session, where Republicans pushed through a map designed explicitly to boost their party’s chances in 2026.California Democrats are moving ahead after days of contentious debate over the cost – and consequences – of a referendum to temporarily toss out the maps drawn by the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission. Republicans estimated that a special election could cost more than $230m – money they said would be better spent on other issues like healthcare.On Wednesday night, the state supreme court declined an emergency request by Republican lawmakers seeking to block the Democratic plan from moving forward.The redistricting push has also caused angst among some Democrats and independents who have fought for years to combat gerrymandering.Testifying in favor of the changes during a hearing earlier this week, Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor who served as a Democratic member of the state’s independent redistricting commission in 2020, said the map-drawing tit-for-tat presented California voters with a “moral conflict”. But she argued that Democrats had to push back on the president’s power grab.“It brings me no joy to see the maps that we passed fairly by the commission to be tossed aside,” she said. “I do believe this is a necessary step in a much bigger battle to shore up free and fair elections in our nation.”The plan also drew the backing of former president Barack Obama and other champions of fair redistricting, such as his former attorney general, Eric Holder.But Newsom’s redistricting plan – a high-stakes gambit for the term-limited governor who has made no secret of his 2028 presidential ambitions – is not assured to succeed. It faces mounting opposition from high-profile Republicans, including the state’s former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vowed to “terminate gerrymandering”.Early polling has been mixed. But a new survey conducted by Newsom’s longtime pollster David Binder found strong support for the measure in the heavily Democratic state, with 57% of voters backing it while 35% opposed it.In a memo, Binder noted that support for the redistricting measure varies depending on how it is presented to voters. When framed as eliminating the state’s independent redistricting commission designed to prevent partisan gerrymandering, support drops. However, when voters hear that the initiative would allow temporary map changes only in response to partisan actions in other states, like Texas, while retaining the commission, the measure enjoys a double-digit margin of support. More

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      Trump administration to review more than 55 million US visa holders for potential rules violations

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      The Trump administration is reviewing the records of more than 55 million US visa holders for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules, in a significant expansion of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.In a move first reported by the Associated Press, the state department said that all of the foreigners who currently hold valid US visas are subject to “continuous vetting” for any indication that they could be ineligible for the document, including those already admitted into the country. Should such evidence come to light, the visa would be revoked and, if the visa holder were in the United States, they would be subject to deportation.“The State Department revokes visas any time there are indications of a potential ineligibility, which includes things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization,” a department spokesperson said.It follows an announcement by the Trump administration on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles requests to stay in the US or become a citizen, said it would expand vetting of the social media postings of applicants and that “reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting”.“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” said a USCIS spokesperson, Matthew Tragesser. “US Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible. Immigration benefits – including to live and work in the United States – remain a privilege, not a right.”Historically, the notion of anti-Americanism has primarily focused on communism. But since taking office in January, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to deny or rescind short-term visas for people deemed to go against US foreign policy interests, especially regarding Israel.Indeed, the latest guidance on immigration decisions said that authorities will look at whether applicants “promote antisemitic ideologies”.The Trump administration has accused students and universities of antisemitism and support for terrorism over participation in protests in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s military assault on Gaza, charges denied by the activists.In April, the administration revoked or changed the legal status of hundreds of international students, only to reinstate them several weeks later. In May, student visa interviews were temporarily halted, and then, in June, new social media vetting measures were introduced for international students applying to study in the US.Under the new measures, foreign students are required to unlock their social media profiles to allow US diplomats to review their online activity before receiving educational and exchange visas. Those who fail to do so are to be suspected of hiding that activity from US officials.On Monday, the state department said it had revoked 6,000 student visas for overstays and violations of local, state and federal law since the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, took office in January. In the “vast majority” of the cases – approximately 4,000 – visas were revoked because the holders “broke the law” in cases of assault, driving under the influence, burglary and “support for terrorism”. More

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      LA Ice protests spurred US military to identify ‘hotels to avoid’ due to ‘harassment’

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      When Donald Trump’s administration escalated immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this summer, protest organizers responded with actions staged in an unusual setting: the hotels where immigration officers were staying.Protests took place at several southern California hotels where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents had been spotted. Some activists launched “No sleep for Ice” rallies, with chants and music blaring through the night, in hopes of pressuring the hotels to kick agents out.Now, public records shared with the Guardian show that the protests indeed sent federal agencies scrambling to find hotels for their officers in LA where they would not be “harassed”.A 16 June email from the US marines shows that military officials made a list of “LA Hotels to Avoid”. The information came from multiple law enforcement agencies who were tracking the community backlash to Ice and the border patrol, the marines said. The list was written by Army North, the domestic defense command deployed on the ground during the protests, and reviewed by the navy’s south-west division.The documents, obtained by Property of the People, a government transparency non-profit, suggest protesters successfully disrupted Trump’s immigration crackdown by targeting hotels, though the extent of their impact is not clear from the records.An email thread shows a Marine Corps analyst in San Diego sent the list of LA hotels to the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center (SD-LECC) seeking a similar list of properties to avoid in San Diego. The analyst’s duties include “critical infrastructure protection” and their name was redacted. The SD-LECC is a fusion center where local, state and federal agencies share intelligence.“We have operations in the area and are looking to avoid issues wherever possible,” the analyst wrote, saying the LA list was based on reports of “harassment of Ice and CBP personnel”.View image in fullscreenAuthorities did not disclose the hotel names or further communications to Property of the People, so it is also unclear how widely hotel demonstrations erupted and were tracked.Spokespeople for the marines and the navy declined to comment, deferring to the army, which did not respond to inquiries. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the hotel protests, and in an email on Thursday after publication of this article, a spokesperson referred questions to the military.Kristi Laughlin, SD-LECC’s deputy director, told the Guardian that SD-LECC was not aware of protests taking place at hotels in the San Diego region and did not provide a list in response to the military’s request.The military’s apparent efforts to help federal personnel avoid demonstrators at hotels came after Trump took the extraordinary step of deploying the national guard and marines to respond to LA protests. The move polled poorly among US residents and led to reports of low morale among troops.Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, which filed a series of records requests on the LA immigration raids, said it was remarkable that US armed forces apparently had to search for accommodations where they would not be protested, an unusual predicament he attributed to the widespread outrage at the administration.“The document reveals that Trump’s nativist crusade, carried out by masked Ice thugs, is so widely detested that now the US military feels the need to hide from Americans on American soil,” Shapiro said in an email.Advocates involved in the protests said the emails seemed to affirm the effectiveness of the demonstrations, some of which were organized spontaneously by nearby residents. News reports in June chronicled hotel demonstrations across LA county municipalities, including Pasadena, Glendale, Long Beach, Whittier, Downey, Monrovia and Montebello.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Working-class people saw this as a way to participate in the struggle against Ice,” said Ron Gochez, a leading member of Unión del Barrio, a group that documents Ice actions in LA. At the height of the June raids, his group received five to 10 calls a day from people who had spotted immigration officers at hotels, Gochez said. Once the reports were verified through photos or hotel employees, Unión del Barrio alerted other community groups in their networks.“A lot of hotel workers were not only mad about officers staying there, but were in fear because they were undocumented,” he said. “People want to make life difficult for these agents as they are kidnapping and separating families. And for the agents to constantly hear that they are unwanted, that people in society hate what they’re doing, that they will go down in history as kidnappers and collaborators, I think that gets to them psychologically.”One of the first hotel demonstrations took place on 8 June at the AC Hotel in Pasadena, a Marriott property, where, according to a state senator, immigration officers were lodging and had questioned staff.“We wanted to alert the community that Ice was staying at the hotel and let Ice know they were not welcome in Pasadena,” said Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, a day laborer center.Widely shared footage showed protesters cheering as federal vehicles left the AC Hotel, with agents seen exiting with their bags stacked on a cart, the LA Times reported.“It was effective because the community organically organized itself, and people did not leave until they physically saw the agents leave,” Madera said. “It’s a source of pride for the people who live and work in Pasadena that we started this and sparked other communities to organize to get Ice out of their hotels … It’s going to take many strategies to slow down and stop Ice raids.”At the Glendale Hilton on 12 June, protesters posted footage of a woman who identified herself as hotel management greeting protesters and saying officers had left and would no longer be staying there.Representatives of the Glendale and Pasadena hotels did not respond to inquiries.“It helped combat this feeling of hopelessness,” said Teto Huezo, who was involved in the Glendale protests and is part of an LA community self-defense coalition that monitors Ice. He said he hoped more protests would pressure hotels to publicly commit to keeping Ice out. “Community members should be proud of these wins. The lesson is, we can be so much more organized and smarter than these agencies, and when we don’t want them in our neighborhoods, we can actually take actions to force them out.” More

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      Texas killed in-state tuition for undocumented college students – what happened next?

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      Ximena had a plan.The 18-year-old from Houston was going to start college in the fall at the University of Texas at Tyler, where she had been awarded $10,000 a year in scholarships. That, she hoped, would set her up for her dream: a PhD in chemistry, followed by a career as a professor or researcher.“And then the change to in-state tuition happened, and that’s when I knew for sure that I had to pivot,” said Ximena, who is from Mexico but has attended schools in the US since kindergarten. (The Guardian and its partner the Hechinger Report, which produced this story, is using her first name only because she fears retaliation for her immigration status.)In June, the Texas attorney general’s office and the Trump administration worked together to end the provisions in a state law that had offered thousands of undocumented students like Ximena lower in-state tuition rates at Texas public colleges. State and federal officials successfully argued in court that the longstanding policy discriminated against out-of-state US citizens who paid a higher rate. That rationale has now been replicated in similar lawsuits against Kentucky, Oklahoma and Minnesota – part of a broader offensive against immigrants’ access to public education.At UT Tyler, in-state tuition and fees for the upcoming academic year total $9,736, compared to more than $25,000 for out-of-state students. Ximena and her family couldn’t afford the higher tuition bill, so she withdrew. Instead, she enrolled at Houston Community College, where out-of-state costs are $227 per semester hour, nearly three times the in-district rate. The school offers only basic college-level chemistry classes, so to set herself up for a doctorate or original research, Ximena will still need to find a way to pay for a four-year university down the line.Her predicament is exactly what state lawmakers from both political parties had hoped to avoid when they passed the Texas Dream Act, 2001 legislation that not only opened doors to higher education for undocumented students but was also meant to bolster Texas’s economy and its workforce in the long term. With that law, Texas became the first of more than two dozen states to implement in-state tuition for undocumented students, and for nearly 24 years, the landmark policy remained intact.Conservative lawmakers repeatedly proposed to repeal it, but despite years of single-party control in the state legislature, not enough Republicans embraced repeal even as recently as this spring, days before the Texas attorney general’s office and the federal Department of Justice moved to end it.Now, as the fall semester approaches, immigrant students are weighing whether to disenroll from their courses or await clarity on how the consent agreement entered into by the state and justice department affects them.Immigration advocates are worried that Texas colleges and universities are boxing out potential attendees who are lawfully present and still qualify for in-state tuition despite the court ruling – including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, asylum applicants and temporary protected status holders – because university personnel lack immigration expertise and haven’t been given clear guidelines on exactly who needs to pay the higher tuition rate.At Austin Community College (ACC), members of the board of trustees are unsure how to accurately implement the ruling. As they await answers, they have so far decided against sending letters asking their students for sensitive information in order to determine tuition rates.“This confusion will inevitably harm students because what we find is that in the absence of information and in the presence of fear and anxiety, students will opt to not continue higher education,” said Manuel Gonzalez, vice-chair of the ACC board of trustees.Policy experts, meanwhile, warn that Texas’s workforce could suffer as talented young people, many of whom have spent their entire education in the state’s public school system, will no longer be able to afford the associate’s and bachelor’s degrees that would allow them to pursue careers that would help propel their local economies. Under the Texas Dream Act, beneficiaries were required to commit to applying for lawful permanent residence as soon as possible, giving them the opportunity to hold down jobs related to their degrees. Even without legal immigration status, it’s likely they will still work – just in lower-paying, under-the-radar jobs.“It’s so short-sighted in terms of the welfare of the state of Texas,” said Barbara Hines, a former law school professor who helped legislators craft the Texas Dream Act.The legislation was first introduced in the state’s lower chamber by retired army national guard Maj Gen Rick Noriega, a Democrat who served in the Texas legislature from 1999 to 2009, after he learned of a young yard worker in his district who wanted to enroll at the local community college for aviation mechanics but could not afford out-of-state tuition.View image in fullscreenNoriega called the school chancellor’s office, which was able to provide funding for the student to attend. But that experience led him to wonder: how many more kids in his district were running up against the same barriers to higher education?So he worked with a sociologist to poll students at local high schools about the problem, which turned out to be widespread. And Noriega’s district wasn’t an outlier. In a state that has long had one of the nation’s largest unauthorized immigrant populations, politicians across the partisan divide knew affected constituents, friends or family members and wanted to help. Once Noriega decided to propose legislation, a Republican, Fred Hill, asked to serve as a joint author on the bill.The legislation easily passed the Texas house, which was Democratic-controlled at the time, but the Republican-led senate was less accommodating.“I couldn’t even get a hearing,” said Leticia Van de Putte, the then state senator who sponsored the legislation in her chamber.View image in fullscreenTo persuade her Republican colleagues, she added several restrictions, including requiring undocumented students to live in Texas for three years before finishing high school or receiving a GED. (Three years was estimated as the average time it would take a family to pay enough in state taxes to make up the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition.) She also included the clause mandating that undocumented students who accessed in-state tuition sign an affidavit pledging to pursue green cards as soon as they were able.Van de Putte turned to Texas business groups to hammer home the economic case for the bill. And she convinced the business community to pay for buses to bring Latino evangelical conservative pastors from Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and other areas to Austin, so they could knock on doors in support of the legislation and pray with Republican senators and their staff.After that, the Texas Dream Act overwhelmingly passed the state senate in May 2001, and the then governor, Rick Perry, a Republican, signed it into law the following month.Yet by 2012, a new slew of rightwing politicians was elected to office, many philosophically opposed to the law – and loud about it. Perry’s defense of the policy came back to haunt him during the 2012 Republican presidential primary, when his campaign was dogged by criticism after he told opponents of tuition equity during a debate: “I don’t think you have a heart.”Still, none of the many bills introduced over the years to repeal the Texas Dream Act were successful. And even the current Texas governor, Greg Abbott, a Republican border hawk, at times equivocated on the policy, with his spokesperson saying in 2013 that Abbott believed “the objective” of in-state tuition regardless of immigration status was “noble”.By 2017, the same year Trump began his first term, polling showed a plurality of Texans in support of in-state tuition for undocumented students. More recently, research has indicated time and time again that Americans support a pathway to legal status for undocumented residents brought to the US as children.But arguments against in-state tuition regardless of immigration status also grew in popularity: critics contended that the policy is unfair to US citizens from other states who have to pay higher rates, or that undocumented students are taking spots at competitive schools that could be filled by documented Americans.The justice department leaned on similar rhetoric in the lawsuit that killed tuition equity in Texas, saying the state law is superseded by 1996 federal legislation banning undocumented immigrants from getting in-state tuition – over US citizens – based on residency.View image in fullscreenIn Texas, the sudden policy change is causing chaos. Even the state’s two largest universities, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, are using different guidelines to decide which students must pay out-of-state rates.“Universities, I think, are the ones that are put in this really difficult position,” said Luis Figueroa, senior director of legislative affairs at the advocacy group Every Texan. “They are not immigration experts. They’ve received very little guidance about how to interpret the consent decree.”Meanwhile, young scholars are facing difficult choices. One student, who asked to remain anonymous because of her undocumented immigration status, wondered about her future.The young woman, who has lived in San Antonio since she was nine months old, had enrolled in six courses for the fall at Texas A&M-San Antonio and wasn’t sure whether to drop them. It would be her final semester before earning her psychology and sociology degrees, but she couldn’t fathom paying for out-of-state tuition.“I’m in the unknown,” she said, like “many students in this moment.”

      This story was originally produced by the Hechinger Report, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education More

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      A coal-fired plant in Michigan was to close. But Trump forced it to keep running at $1m a day

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      Donald Trump has made several unusual moves to elongate the era of coal, such as giving the industry exemptions from pollution rules. But the gambit to keep one Michigan coal-fired power station running has been extraordinary – by forcing it to remain open even against the wishes of its operator.The hulking JH Campbell power plant, which since 1962 has sat a few hundred yards from the sand dunes at the edge of Lake Michigan, was just eight days away from a long-planned closure in May when Trump’s Department of Energy issued an emergency order that it remain open for a further 90 days.On Wednesday, the administration intervened again to extend this order even further, prolonging the lifetime of the coal plant another 90 days, meaning it will keep running until November – six months after it was due to close.The move, taken under emergency powers more normally used during wartime or in the wake of disaster, has stunned local residents and the plant’s operator, Consumers Energy. “My family had a countdown for it closing, we couldn’t wait,” said Mark Oppenhuizen, who has lived in the shadow of the plant for 30 years and suspects its pollution worsened his wife’s lung disease.“I was flabbergasted when the administration said they had stopped it shutting down,” he said. “Why are they inserting themselves into a decision a company has made? Just because politically you don’t like it? It’s all so dumb.”The 23 May order and the latest edict, by the US energy secretary, Chris Wright, both warn that the regional grid would be strained by the closure of JH Campbell with local homes and businesses at risk of “curtailments or outages, presenting a risk to public health and safety” without it.“This order will help ensure millions of Americans can continue to access affordable, reliable, and secure baseload power regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining,” Wright said in a statement on Thursday.But Miso, the grid operator for Michigan and 14 other states, has stressed it has had “adequate resources to meet peak demand this summer” without JH Campbell and Consumers Energy had already set about making plans for life after its last remaining coal plant.“What’s remarkable is that this is the first time the energy secretary has used these powers without being asked to do so by the market operator or power plant operator,” said Timothy Fox, an energy analyst at ClearView. “It shows the Trump administration is prepared to take muscular actions to keep its preferred power sources online.”View image in fullscreenWright – whose department has bizarrely taken to tweeting pictures of lumps of coal with the words “She’s an icon. She’s a legend” – has said the US “has got to stop closing coal plants” to help boost electricity generation to meet demand that is escalating due to the growth of artificial intelligence.The administration has also issued a separate emergency declaration to keep open a gas plant in Pennsylvania, although it has sought to kill off wind and solar projects, which Trump has called “ugly” and “disgusting”.The president, who solicited and received major donations from coal, oil and gas interests during his election campaign, has signed an executive order aimed at reviving what he calls “beautiful, clean coal” and took the remarkable step of asking fossil fuel companies to email requests to be exempt from pollution laws, again under emergency powers.So far, 71 coal plants, along with dozens of other chemical, copper smelting and other polluting facilities, have received “pollution passes” from the Trump administration according to a tally by the Environmental Defense Fund, allowing greater emissions of airborne toxins linked to an array of health problems. Coal is, despite Trump’s claims, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels and the leading source of planet-heating pollution.Trump has launched a “political takeover of the electricity grid” to favor fossil fuels, according to Caroline Reiser, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The result of this will be higher electricity bills, more pollution in our communities and a worsening climate crisis,” she added.In Michigan, the cost of keeping JH Campbell open is set to be steep. Consumers Energy initially estimated its closure would save ratepayers $600m by 2040 as it shifts to cheaper, cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind.Reversing this decision costs $1m a day in operating costs, an imposition that midwest residents will have to meet through their bills. It is understood the company privately told outside groups it fears the administration could keep adding 90-day emergency orders for the entire remainder of Trump’s term.“Consumers Energy continues to comply with the [Department of Energy] order and will do so as long as it is in effect,” a company spokesperson said. “We are pursuing recovery of the costs of running the Campbell plant in a proceeding currently before [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission]. Timely cost recovery is essential.”Should the Trump administration go further and force all of the US fossil fuel plants set to retire by 2028 to continue operating, it will cost American ratepayers as much as $6bn a year in extra bills, a new report by a coalition of green groups has found.This would almost certainly be met by legal action – Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general, has already filed a lawsuit arguing the “arbitrary and illegal order” to extend JH Campbell’s lifespan will unfairly heap costs upon households in the state.Trump’s efforts may bear some fruit, with US coal production expected to tick up slightly this year, although the longer-term trend for coal is one of decline amid cheaper gas and renewables. “The administration may slow the retirement trend although they are unlikely to stop it,” said ClearView’s Fox. “The economics don’t change but the administration could be a savior for these plants at least while Donald Trump is in office.”For those living next to and downwind of coal plants, there is a cost to be paid that isn’t just monetary. Tiny soot particles from burned coal can bury themselves deep into the lungs, causing potentially deadly respiratory and heart problems.The closure of such plants can lift this burden dramatically – a recent study found that in the month after a coal facility was closed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2016, the number of childhood asthma visits to local hospitals declined by 41% and then continued to fall by about 4% each month.The study shows “the closure of a major industrial pollution source can lead to immediate and lasting improvements in the lung health of the those who live nearby”, said Wuyue Yu, research co-author and postdoctoral fellow at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.For those living in the township of Port Sheldon, a mostly bucolic setting on the shore of the vast Lake Michigan, a pollution-free future beckoned once JH Campbell had been scheduled to close, with lofty plans for new parkland, housing and a battery plant touted for the site.View image in fullscreenNow there is uncertainty. Last week, a few dozen residents and activists held a protest event next to the sprawling plant, which hummed and whirred in the summer heat, one 650ft chimney puncturing the horizon, another, smaller flue striped red and white, like a candy cane.Dozens of train cars full of coal, hastily procured after the plant’s supply was used up ahead of a closure that has been scheduled for four years, backed up in the sunshine. When burned in the huge 1.5GW plant, this coal emits about 7.7m tons of carbon dioxide a year.“Trump is just trying to keep the money coming into coal companies as long as he can, I suppose,” said David Hoekema, who has lived a couple of miles from the plant since 2006 and has had to clean coal dust from his windows. Trump easily won this county, called Ottawa, in last year’s election, but Hoekema said even his staunchest conservative neighbors don’t want the coal plant.“I’ve not met anyone along the lake shore who says, ‘Oh yeah, let’s keep this open’ – even the conservative Republicans are concerned about their health,” he said. “Republican ideology says local control is best but the Trump administration is saying, ‘We don’t care what the hell states do, we will impose our order on them.’ I know there’s a lot of competition, but this would have to be one of their craziest decisions.”The Department of Energy did not respond to questions about its plan for JH Campbell once its latest extension expires. The battle over the coal plant’s future has taken place to a backdrop of a scorching summer in Michigan, one of its hottest on record, with algal blooms sprouting in its lakes, both symptoms of an unfolding climate crisis.“The talk in neighborhoods has been how hot it’s been this summer – my kid was prepared to be outside every day and it’s been so hot so often it’s been irresponsible to do that,” said Stephen Wooden, a Democratic state lawmaker who added that Michigan residents are also “pissed off” about increasing power bills.“We’re seeing the impacts of climate change daily, it is impacting our state,” Wooden said. “And this is being caused by the continuation of outdated, expensive fossil fuels that Donald Trump wants to prop up.” More