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Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) today introduced the Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act, which establishes a Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service within AmeriCorps. This legislation updates, modernizes, and expands the concept of the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps: ensuring that all Americans who want to participate may do so, regardless of race, age, or gender; broadening the range of eligible projects; providing 21st century health and education benefits; deepening partnerships with unions; and preserving Tribal sovereignty.
This is "a deeply unpopular and politically motivated attack on Planned Parenthood and reproductive freedom that will disproportionately harm families who are already struggling to make ends meet," said one advocate.
Critics are decrying the Trump administration's freeze of tens of millions of dollars for the reproductive care provider Planned Parenthood—money that's meant to provide low-income Americans contraception access, cancer screenings, and other crucial services.
Nine Planned Parenthood state affiliates received notice on Monday that the administration is withholding Title X funding effective Tuesday, according to a Monday statement from Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Since 1970, Title X has provided federal funding to a network of grantees who provide sexual and reproductive healthcare with a focus on serving low-income patients.
In total, the Trump administration is withholding payments to 16 Title X providers, perPolitico, citing a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). According to the journalist Jessica Valenti, 21 states will be impacted, and eight states—California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and Utah—will cease receiving Title X dollars.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk are "pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping healthcare access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in a statement on Monday.
"We know what happens when healthcare providers cannot use Title X funding: People across the country suffer, cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation's [sexually transmitted infections] crisis worsens," she added.
Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of the advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, called the move "a deeply unpopular and politically motivated attack on Planned Parenthood and reproductive freedom that will disproportionately harm families who are already struggling to make ends meet."
According to a letter sent to Planned Parenthood chapters, which Politicoreviewed, the funding is being "temporarily withheld," citing potential violations of federal civil rights law and Trump's executive orders, including prohibitions on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. For example, public statements that emphasize "commitment to Black communities" are cited as evidence of Planned Parenthood's noncompliance, per Politico.
The administration's move to freeze the funding was first reported by The Wall Street Journal last week. The paper reported that HHS was considering a freeze of $27.5 million in grants to groups that would include Planned Parenthood affiliates while the administration investigates whether the money was used on DEI efforts.
In response to that reporting, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement last week that "it's clear Trump and Elon couldn't care less how many people suffer, whose cancer goes undetected, or if women can no longer afford birth control as a result of their deranged mission to attack anything they deem DEI—no matter the consequences to real people's lives, and no matter the fact that this administration can't even define DEI."
Valenti reported Monday that the Title X funding freeze tallies close to $35 million, and highlighted that it will impact not only Planned Parenthood affiliates. One of the impacted organizations is Converge, Inc.—Mississippi's only Title X grantee. According to a letter from HHS obtained by Valenti, Converge, Inc. came under scrutiny in part due to a document titled "Our Commitment to Addressing Systemic Racism."
"Without federal funding—funding that runs out today—they will shutter," wrote Valenti of Converge, Inc. "The 90 Mississippi clinics under their purview will be in jeopardy of closing, and the tens of thousands of women who rely on them for care will have nowhere to go. All because they opposed racism."
"If Trump can disappear Abrego Garcia, he can disappear you," warned one advocate. "This is why due process matters. Without it, America slides into dictatorship."
"This is the precedent Trump needs to send you to a concentration camp," said one advocate for due process rights as President Donald Trump's administration claimed it had made an "administrative error" in sending a Maryland father to a prison in his home country of El Salvador—leaving the federal government with no way of bringing him back to his children and wife, a U.S. citizen.
In a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, an acting field office director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Robert L. Cerna, told Judge Paula Xinis that the removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on March 15 "was in error." Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of people rounded up by the Trump administration and sent to a "Terrorism Confinement Center" in El Salvador, with the White House invoking the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II and claiming many were members of gangs including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
Cerna's filing reveals the result of a mass expulsion operation in which hundreds of people were afforded no due process rights in violation of the U.S. Constitution: At least one person with legal protected status in the United States who was not convicted of a crime is now imprisoned in a country where a U.S. federal court had previously found he could face persecution and torture.
As Joshua Eakle of Project Liberal warned, Abrego Garcia's detention and the administration's claim that it can do nothing to help him also creates precedent for Trump to do the same to anyone else it sees fit to target.
"This is how it starts. You must pay attention," said Eakle. "If Trump can disappear Abrego Garcia, he can disappear you. If Trump can strip his rights with no accountability, he can do it to anyone. This is why due process matters. Without it, America slides into dictatorship."
As the news spread of Abrego Garcia's mistaken expulsion, Vice President JD Vance "smeared him as a 'convicted gang member,'" claiming to cite the court filing from Monday, and accused podcast host Jon Favreau of having sympathy for "gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize."
Cerna's filing states that Abrego Garcia was denied bond in 2019 because "the evidence show[ed] that he is a verified member of [Mara Salvatrucha] ('MS-13')]" and therefore posed a danger to the community." As Kyle Cheney wrote at Politico, the accusation was "sharply contested" by Abrego Garcia and "credited to information gleaned from a confidential informant."
"That's not a conviction," said Cheney.
The 2019 court filing regarding the bond denial notes that Abrego Garcia "has no criminal conviction" and that the government erroneously stated at the time that Abrego Garcia was "detained in connection to a murder investigation."
Further, noted Cheney, the court at the time found that Abrego Garcia was likely a member of MS-13, but that he had a credible fear of persecution in his home country of El Salvador and should not be deported there—or expelled via an operation like Trump's mass expulsion campaign, in which those sent overseas have not been afforded due process.
Vance's claim that Abrego Garcia is a "convicted gang member" was "a lie," said Krystal Ball of the online news show "Breaking Points."
"But JD's comment reveals his deportation was not really a 'mistake,'" she said. "They put whoever they could round up on those planes without regard for guilt, innocence, immigration status, or court orders. If this man can be permanently disappeared into a foreign dungeon, anyone can."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council said it was "shocking that the vice president of the United States would so callously, and so falsely, accuse someone of being a convicted gang member. It's especially bad when his own administration just admitted to illegally deporting that person due to 'administrative error.'"
Trump's Justice Department is now urging Xinis to reject a petition filed by Abrego Garcia's attorneys to secure his return to the U.S., saying that since the Maryland resident is now in custody in his home country, the administration and the court system can't force El Salvador to return him.
"People should go to prison over this," said Paul Blest, a reporter for More Perfect Union.
Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for United Farm Workers, suggested the Trump administration is now refusing to push for Abrego Garcia or other potentially innocent people who have been expelled from the U.S. "because then they will be able to speak for themselves and the full extent of this atrocity will become clear."
Shannon Watts, founder of the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, called on the Democratic Party to ensure the administration can't ignore the demand for Abrego Garcia's release.
"I don't care what the polls say about immigration, this is a legal assault on the Constitution and humanity," said Watts. "Democratic leaders must publicly pressure the Trump administration to rescue Kilmar Abrego Garcia."
"The government," said the judge, "has failed to identify any real countervailing harm in continuing [temporary protected status] for Venezuelan beneficiaries."
An effort by the Trump administration to unilaterally strip the temporary protected status (TPS) of approximately 350,000 Venezuelan refugees living in the United States was blocked Monday night by a federal court judge who described the order by Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as being "motivated by unconstitutional animus."
In a 78-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco said Noem's rescinding of an order made under the Biden administration "threatens to: inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States. At the same time, the government has failed to identify any real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries."
The ruling puts a pause on the Trump administration's action, which would have stripped the humanitarian protections next week and opened the door for immediate deportations of those previously granted the right to live in the U.S. due to the economic and political instability in their home country.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit argued that Trump's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to follow necessary rules set by Congress in reaching its decision to end the protections. "Until now, no administration had ever moved to rescind a grant of TPS protection," said the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), among the groups that helped bring the challenge in court.
Chen said the TPS holders who acted as plaintiffs in the case—represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at UCLA School of Law, and HBA—were likely to prevail on the merits, showing that Noem's order was "unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus."
Jose Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, welcomed the decision.
"In the face of adversity, we stand united," Palma said in a statement after the ruling.
"This is not just a legal win," Palma continued, "but a testament to the strength of the TPS community and all who fight alongside us. We will continue this fight with unwavering resolve, not only to protect the future of 350,000 Venezuelans but to defend all TPS holders in this country. Together, we will ensure that the voices of those who seek safety and opportunity are heard and that no one is unjustly torn from their families."
Jessica Bansal, an attorney with NDLON, said, "the Venezuelan TPS holders, like all TPS holders, are living and working lawfully in this country pursuant to a humanitarian program created by Congress 30 years ago. Today's decision to pause the Trump administration's unlawful attempt to strip them of protection provides them and their families with much-needed relief."
One of the plaintiffs, identified by the initials M.H. and due to lose her status within days, also expressed relief.
"My daughter and I rely on TPS to live here," she said. "Without TPS, I would risk being separated from my husband and young son, both of whom are U.S. citizens. I am beyond elated to know that the judge has granted protection while we continue this fight to protect my family and hundreds of thousands of others."