Trump, Donald J

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      Trump Administration Plans to Require Undocumented Immigrants to Register

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      The move, which could expose unregistered migrants to criminal prosecution, represents a drastic escalation of the administration’s efforts to push millions of immigrants to leave on their own.The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it planned to make undocumented immigrants age 14 or older in the United States register and provide their fingerprints to the U.S. government or potentially face criminal prosecution.The announcement by the Department of Homeland Security is a drastic escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to push millions of immigrants in the country illegally to leave on their own. Administration officials have repeatedly implored such immigrants to depart. Now they are adding an implicit threat.“President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message for those in our country illegally: Leave now,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream.”In a Fox News interview on Tuesday, Ms. Noem said the migrant registry plan was part of an effort to “use every single tool at our disposal to do exactly what President Trump promised the American people.”Migrants who do not register could face criminal or civil penalties, including fines. But it is unlikely the new rule will result in widespread compliance.Immigrants in the country illegally are unlikely to come forward to register with the government, especially given Mr. Trump’s threats of mass deportations. The administration also does not know where many unauthorized immigrants are, making it difficult to prosecute them if they do not register.Still, the move was a sign of the Trump administration’s intent to use every resource available to create a hostile environment for immigrants with the hope that they will leave the United States voluntarily.“We’re seeing an effort to expand arrests through any means possible, so this provision likely aims to create additional justifications to arrest and deport more individuals from the country,” said Cris Ramón, a senior immigration adviser for UnidosUS, a civil rights organization. “It also creates additional confusion for undocumented individuals, increasing the fear that’s gripped them and their families since late January.”The new plan would rely on an existing immigration law, although one that has not generally been enforced. Shortly before the United States entered World War II, the U.S. passed a law requiring undocumented immigrants to register with the U.S. government at their local post office.The department said the registration effort does not apply to those who have green cards, who are already in deportation proceedings or who entered the country with visas. But parents of undocumented immigrants younger than 14 must register their children.The requirement was set up in the flurry of Day 1 executive orders issued by the Trump administration. The current chief of staff of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jon Feere, has also previously advocated enforcing registration requirements. More

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      What Can House Republicans Cut Instead of Medicaid? Not Much.

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      The math of the G.O.P.’s goals makes the move almost unavoidable.The House passed a budget resolution Tuesday night after the speaker, Mike Johnson, persuaded several Republican lawmakers, including those who have expressed reservations about possible Medicaid cuts, to support the bill.In theory, the budget, which kicks off the process of passing an extension of tax cuts enacted in 2017 and up to $2 trillion in spending cuts meant to partly offset them, could become law without significant cuts to Medicaid. But it won’t be easy. More

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      Hundreds in Park Service Have Opted to Quit, Agency Memo Says

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      More than 700 National Park Service employees have submitted resignations as part of Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” offer, according to an internal agency memo that critics of the plan said would diminish staffing ahead of the busy summer tourism season.The news of the resignations comes after a decision earlier this month at the Department of Interior to fire more than 1,000 full-time national park employees. According to the new memo sent on Tuesday and viewed by The New York Times, the additional 700 workers who agreed to the resignation plan would not be permitted to work after March 7.The staffing cuts have sparked a public outcry. Conservationists, outdoor enthusiasts and park rangers have warned that the reductions threaten to leave hundreds of national parks understaffed during the busy summer season, and already are causing some parks to reduce hours, cancel tours and close visitor centers.The national park job losses are part of a chaotic effort by President Trump to delete thousands of federal jobs. Adding to the confusion, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the park service also plans to rehire thousands of workers — albeit as temporary, summer positions.“The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in work force management,” Elizabeth Peace, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said in a statement.“We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks,” she said.Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group, has said the temporary positions are not a substitute for the employees with years of full-time experience now lost to the park system.She also noted that about 2,000 prospective seasonal employees had their job offers rescinded when Mr. Trump, during his first days in office, imposed a hiring freeze across the government. That freeze compromised the ability to accelerate the process of rehiring those people.During the warm-weather months, as many as 325 million people visit the nation’s 63 national parks and hundreds of historic sites and other attractions managed by the park service.Federal workers received the Trump administration’s resignation offer in an email last month entitled “A Fork in the Road.” Under the offer, employees who accepted it would leave their jobs, but continue getting paid through September — and those who did not accept it risked being fired. According to the Office of Personnel Management, about 75,000 workers across the government have accepted the offer. More

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      White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump

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      The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential pool, the small, rotating group of journalists who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public.The change announced by Ms. Leavitt breaks decades of precedent. The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool.Because presidents often hold events in smaller settings like the Oval Office, where not every reporter who covers the president can fit, the pool format has long been used to ensure that journalists accurately record a president’s comments. The reporters who witness the events distribute a series of “pool reports” to a wider group of journalists, including hundreds of news outlets that cover his daily activities and remarks.The pool is most often made up of journalists from organizations like CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News, Fox News and The New York Times.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, speaking to reporters in the briefing room this month.Eric Lee/The New York TimesMs. Leavitt said that the new policy was intended to allow “new media” outlets — such as digital sites, streaming services and podcasts — “to share in this awesome responsibility.”The White House Correspondents’ Association rebuked the move in a blistering statement.“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” Eugene Daniels, the president of the association, wrote. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”The association said that it had been given no warning of Ms. Leavitt’s announcement and that there had been no prior discussions about it with the White House. “The W.H.C.A. will never stop advocating for comprehensive access, full transparency and the right of the American public to read, listen to and watch reports from the White House, delivered without fear or favor,” Mr. Daniels wrote.The Trump administration recently added a “new media” seat in the White House briefing room. The seat has been occupied by some journalists who strive for accuracy and fairness, such as reporters at Axios and Semafor, and by partisan figures who are sympathetic to the Trump administration, such as the podcast host Sage Steele.“Legacy media outlets who been here for years will still participate in the pool, but new voices are going to be welcomed in as well,” Ms. Leavitt said at Tuesday’s press briefing.Ms. Leavitt did not provide specific details of how the plan might work, but it would allow President Trump and his aides to handpick which reporters and media personalities were granted the ability to ask him questions and observe his behavior at specific events.Ms. Leavitt put a different spin on it. “By deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day-to-day basis, the White House will be restoring power back to the American people,” she said. More

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      Trump Returns to a Favorite Issue: Health Care Price Transparency

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      In a new executive order, President Trump will reaffirm his commitment to one of his favorite health care policies of his first term: His push to make the prices paid for medical services more public and transparent.Mr. Trump will sign the order on Tuesday afternoon, according to a White House official. After years of halfhearted compliance from hospitals and insurance companies with the previous policies, Mr. Trump is signaling a more aggressive approach to enforcing the rules and making pricing data accessible to patients, the official said.Health care prices have historically been shrouded in secrecy, negotiated in private between doctors, hospitals, drug companies and the insurance companies that pay their bills. The parties in those negotiations have fought hard to keep those numbers out of public view, saying that confidentiality is key to their bargaining process. Economics literature — which relied heavily on a study of Danish concrete prices in the 1990s — has suggested that making them public could actually backfire, by increasing health care prices.But with two major rules issued jointly by the departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury and Labor during his first term, Mr. Trump tried to force the industry to become more transparent. One rule required hospitals to publish the prices they charged to various insurers for a set of common services. Another required insurance companies to publish a more comprehensive listing of the prices they had negotiated with various health care providers.Industry compliance has been grudging, slow and marked by extensive litigation. After the rules became final in 2021, many hospitals simply declined to publish the required lists. Others tried to make their price information hard to find. The Wall Street Journal reported that several had inserted code into their web pages listing prices that made the pages impossible to find using an internet search engine.Nevertheless, the requirement did provide new information to researchers, employers and some patients about the nature of health care prices — and their wide and often inexplicable variation. The policy has so far not delivered on one of Mr. Trump’s key promises from his last term, that price transparency would significantly drive down health care costs. Health care prices have continued to rise.The new executive order will task H.H.S., Treasury and Labor with considering new ways to expand the reach of current initiatives, but it does not call for much in the way of specific new policy. Any meaningful new transparency initiative would require regulatory action or legislation, or both. But the signing of the new order does suggest that Mr. Trump has not forgotten about this priority, which he often referred to in his first term as “bigger than health care itself.” More

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      Three Years: Reflections on the Ukraine War

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      More from our inbox:Advice for Democrats: ‘Go Home and Listen’Lab Discoveries LostBuy Back Pennies and NickelsRe-evaluating Movies Andrew Kravchenko/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “At Home and Abroad, Mourning Lives Lost Over Three Long Years” (news article, Feb. 25):Feb. 24 marked the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am inspired by, and my heart breaks for, the brave and noble Ukrainians. I wish my president were more like President Volodymyr Zelensky.Alison FordOssining, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Dueling U.N. Resolutions on Ukraine Highlight Fissures Between the U.S. and Europe” (news article, Feb. 25):If the United States’ joining Russia to vote against a United Nations resolution to condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine isn’t giving aid and comfort to our enemy, I don’t know what is. Shame on us all.Eileen MitchellLewes, Del.To the Editor:Republicans, historically the party for a strong U.S. foreign policy and an understanding of who our democratic allies are, now remain silent.As President Trump embraces Vladimir Putin, widely suspected of being a killer of political rivals and journalists, and calls President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, our Republican senators and representatives should understand that their silence is more than acquiescence.It should be construed as supporting our current path. So when things go wrong, as they inevitably do when you cut deals with bad actors, don’t you dare pretend you were not a part of this abhorrent change in direction in U.S. policy.Steve ReichShort Hills, N.J.To the Editor:Re “Ukraine Nears a Deal to Give U.S. a Share of Its Mineral Wealth” (news article, nytimes.com, Feb. 24):I want to register my objection to the United States’ “mineral rights” demand to Ukraine. Further, any treaty granting our nation such rights must be approved by Congress, which I hope will show a shred of dignity and ensure that it at least gives Ukraine protection and sovereignty in return.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Acting I.R.S. Commissioner Doug O’Donnell to Announce Retirement

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      The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is expected to announce on Tuesday that he is retiring, according to three people familiar with the move, the latest agency head to depart after Elon Musk’s team pushed for access to sensitive data and mass layoffs.Doug O’Donnell, a 40-year veteran of the I.R.S., took over the agency last month after the last commissioner stepped down at the beginning of President Trump’s term. Melanie Krause, the chief operating officer at the I.R.S., is expected to become the new acting leader after Mr. O’Donnell leaves on Friday, the people said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Mr. O’Donnell had been considering retiring soon, even before Mr. Trump took office and began cutting thousands of jobs at the tax collector, two of the people said. Mr. Trump has nominated Billy Long, a former Republican congressman who aggressively marketed a tax credit that the I.R.S. has tried to shut down, to lead the agency of roughly 100,000 staff.Still, the I.R.S. has been in the cross hairs of the Trump administration. More than 6,700 employees were laid off last week as part of Mr. Musk’s push to dramatically reduce the size of the work force.The I.R.S. last week reached an agreement setting the terms of employment for a young software engineer, Gavin Kliger, affiliated with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, who is temporarily working at the tax agency. That agreement bars Mr. Kliger from viewing individual taxpayers’ information. More

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      Government Watchdog Moves to Protect Probationary Federal Workers

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      A government watchdog lawyer whose dismissal by President Trump has been stalled by the courts announced on Monday that his office would seek to pause the mass firings of some probationary federal workers.The lawyer, Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency that protects whistle-blowers, said his office had determined that the firings might violate the law.In a statement posted to the agency’s website, Mr. Dellinger said that the decision to fire probationary employees en masse “without individualized cause” appeared “contrary to a reasonable reading of the law,” and that he would ask a government review board to pause the firings for 45 days.The move marks an attempt by federal workers to use the levers of government to push back against the mass firings by the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s team. A spokesman for Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Dellinger’s move, which was reported earlier by Government Executive, a trade publication, also highlights the many layers of government officials who have been targeted by the Trump administration. At every level of the case, the officials reviewing the firings have themselves been dismissed and are using other legal means to fight to hold on to their jobs.The Office of Special Counsel, which was created in 1979, is not connected to the special counsels who are appointed by the Justice Department.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More