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Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end legal protections for Haitians, Syrians

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.

The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.

It marked another victory at the high court for Republican President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on immigration. Though the conservative-dominated court has put the brakes on some of Trump’s immigration policies over the last year, it handed him a second win Thursday in a decision clearing the way for the revival of a policy restricting immigrants seeking asylum.

The court’s conservative majority found that immigration authorities have sole authority over the program, and the law doesn’t allow judges to intervene.

The majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito also brushed aside arguments that derogatory comments from Trump about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice. He called the statements “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

Justice Elena Kagan forcefully disagreed, calling Trump’s comments “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.” She pointed out that Trump had said Haitians in the U.S. “probably have AIDS,” and he also amplified false rumors during the 2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating dogs and cats.

Lawyers said Haitian immigrants would be in serious danger if they are sent back. “Simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths,” Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber said.

They urged the Senate to approve an extension of deportation protections for Haitians that’ passed the House on a rare bipartisan vote in April.

“Families are here, kids are going to school, parents are going into work, folks are trying to commute, and it’s like the Supreme Court just put all those activities on stop and put folks in limbo,” said Viles Dorsainvil, who runs a support center for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called the “a devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked, and contributed to this country for years — only to be cast out based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.”

Haitians with TPS are also a key part of the workforce in long-term care facilities. “This would be a dreadful loss for all seniors in our community,” said Rita Siebenaler, a resident at Goodwin Living, a senior living community in Virginia.

The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.

Federal authorities deny prejudice played a role. They also cited a Supreme Court decision from Trump’s first term that rejected bias claims based on his social media posts and upheld a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.

James Percival, DHS general counsel, applauded Thursday’s ruling. He said the program had, in many cases, become “de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense.”

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Homeland Security has ended the protections, including some that had been in place for more than a decade, for people from 13 countries.

The terminations were made even though countries such as Haiti and Syria remain dangerous, immigration lawyers said. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.

The United States first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.

Syrians were first granted protected status in 2012, during a civil war that lasted for more than a decade before the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.

“Today, many of our community members they feel lost,” Farrah AlKhorfan of Immigrants Act Now said about Syrian immigrants losing TPS protections. “They are trying to understand … what this decision means for them and how it will be implemented and how much time they will have to prepare for what comes next.”

The program was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.

June 25, 2026
David Clayton-Thomas, powerhouse lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, has died at 84

NEW YORK — David Clayton-Thomas, the lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, whose husky, high-strung tenor on “Spinning Wheel,” “And When I Die,” and other hits helped make the so-called “brass rock” band among the most popular acts of the late 1960s, has died at age 84.

Spokesperson Eric Alper said that Mr. Clayton-Thomas died “peacefully” Wednesday at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Alper did not cite a specific cause.

Mr. Clayton-Thomas was a onetime street fighter and petty thief from Canada who briefly became a rock superstar, the front man of a nine-member group that sold millions of records and won two Grammys for Blood, Sweat & Tears, which beat out the Beatles’ Abbey Road for best album of 1969. Calling out amid a jazzy parade of horns, keyboards, and percussion, Mr. Clayton-Thomas’ urgent shout was a signature voice of the era, preaching love on the Motown cover “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” a lasting legacy on Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die,” and a cool head on his own “Spinning Wheel.” Meanwhile, Blood, Sweat & Tears helped inspire a wave of horn-led bands, among them Chicago, the Electric Flag, and Ten Wheel Drive.

“A lot of the guys [in Blood, Sweat & Tears] would play a Broadway show matinee, then go up to Harlem and play Latin music or R&B and funk at night, or come down to the Village and play pure jazz the next night,” Mr. Clayton-Thomas told bestclassicbands.com in 2023. “I was just a blues player: give me three chords and I’ve got a song.”

At its peak, Blood, Sweat & Tears’ appeal was so broad it helped lead to the band’s downfall.

Hip enough to perform at the 1969 Woodstock festival, where they were among the highest paid acts, they also were known enough to the establishment to tour Eastern Europe the following year on behalf of the State Department. When Mr. Clayton-Thomas and other band members denounced the Communist regimes on the other side of the Cold War, Rolling Stone’s David Felton wrote that “the State Department got its money worth.” Yippies would turn up at a 1970 Blood, Sweat & Tears show at Madison Square Garden, carrying obscene banners outside and dumping manure by the front gate.

The band had practical reasons for going along with the government: Mr. Clayton-Thomas, who had allegedly wielded a gun at his girlfriend, had been denied a green card and faced deportation. But after topping the charts in 1970 with the album Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, their appeal soon faded. A burned out Mr. Clayton-Thomas left the group in 1972, and neither he nor the remaining musicians ever regained their old stature. Blood, Sweat & Tears would continue recording over the next few years, and even briefly reunited with Mr. Clayton-Thomas, who went on to release more than a dozen solo albums and tour on his own for decades.

Mr. Clayton-Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996. “Spinning Wheel,” covered by everyone from James Brown to TV star Barbara Eden, was voted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame a decade later.

Mr. Clayton-Thomas is survived by his daughters, Ashleigh Clayton-Thomas and Christine Graham.

Up from the streets

Born David Henry Thomsett in Surrey, England, and raised near Toronto and Ottawa, he was the son of a Canadian World War II veteran and of a pianist-entertainer who helped inspire her son’s interest in music. Thomsett was lucky to have the chance. He fought violently with his father, was living in the streets by his mid-teens and by age 20 was serving time in a reformatory for vagrancy, assault and other crimes.

An old guitar, left behind by a fellow inmate, changed his life. He taught himself to play and began spending extensive time in the early 1960s around Toronto’s Yonge Street music “strip,” where peers included the American rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins, a mentor to Robbie Robertson and other future members of the Band and a guide for Thomsett early in his career.

Anxious to reinvent himself, he changed his last name to Clayton-Thomas while leading his own groups. In the mid-60s, he released such albums as Sings Like It Is and had a hit single with the anti-war rocker “Brainwashed.” He would also befriend a rising star, Joni Mitchell, whose childlike “Circle Game” helped inspire “Spinning Wheel,” and the venerable John Lee Hooker, who would indirectly contribute to Mr. Clayton-Thomas’ breakthrough in the U.S.

America beckons

Hooker had encouraged Mr. Clayton-Thomas to move to New York, where the American bluesman had an engagement at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. When Hooker unexpectedly departed for a tour of Europe, club owner Howard Solomon needed a replacement and recruited Mr. Clayton-Thomas.

“So I played him a couple songs on the guitar,” Mr. Clayton-Thomas told bestclassicbands.com. “He said, ‘Do you have a band?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and went out into Greenwich Village looking for anybody carrying a guitar case or even looking like a musician, and we put together a little band and we opened there that night. We ended up staying there for several months.”

Around the same time, session man-producer Al Kooper was looking to a form jazz-rock group and was joined by such musicians as guitarist Steve Katz, drummer Bobby Colomby, and horn players Randy Brecker and Jerry Weiss. They called themselves Blood, Sweat & Tears, releasing the debut album Child Is Father to the Man early in 1968. Although praised by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner as “a fine, exemplary group,” members were torn between those allied with Kooper and those who thought his vocals too weak to attract a substantial audience.

By the end of the year, Kooper and others had departed, and the band was seeking a new singer. After Judy Collins saw Mr. Clayton-Thomas perform, she recommended him to Colomby.

“I got home and just a couple of days later, Bobby Colomby called me up and said, ‘Hey, Kooper’s gone. We got four guys left out of the nine. And we still got a record contract with Columbia. Do you want to come down and try out for the band?”’ Mr. Clayton-Thomas told bestclassicbands.com. ”I said, ‘You’re damn right.’ I knew [bassist] Jim Fielder real well and I knew they were superb musicians. So I was on the next plane. We had a rehearsal that afternoon, an audition, and it was instant magic. We just knew right off the bat.”

June 25, 2026
New acting intel czar Bill Pulte starts trimming staff as Trump urged

Acting director of national intelligence Bill Pulte, installed Friday by President Donald Trump, has at Trump’s urging begun trimming his organization, which coordinates the nation’s 18 spy agencies.

This week Pulte fired a half-dozen political appointees and notified several dozen career officers on loan to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that they were being sent back to their home agencies.

Pulte’s immediate predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, had already culled hundreds of personnel, boasting that she had slashed the staff by 40%. Trump has long been distrustful of what he calls the “deep state” intelligence community, and the cuts by Pulte are the latest in a series of shocks that have roiled the ODNI.

Gabbard, who left office last week, had a stormy tenure, falling in and out of favor with Trump’s White House. Current and former officials criticized as ham-handed her release of files related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. She selectively declassified data on Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election and other matters that supported Trump’s views.

In recent months, the ODNI has seen a number of high-level resignations and a roller coaster of leadership announcements by Trump.

The agency “is being so hollowed out that its new name might become DNR — do not resuscitate. It’s on life support already,” said Beth Sanner, a former ODNI deputy director who served as Trump’s intelligence briefer in his first administration.

While a number of current and former intelligence officials note that there are merits to shrinking the ODNI, the Trump administration, they say, has gone about it in a haphazard way that could undermine the intelligence coordination that Congress created the agency to do.

“Reasonable people can debate ODNI’s size and mission, but sacking dozens of seasoned officers in your first week isn’t reform — it’s performative firing to please a president who treats his own intelligence community as the enemy within,” said Julia Curlee, who served as a director for intelligence programs in Trump’s White House until last year and recently resigned from the CIA after 20 years as an analyst.

Pulte asked program heads for a rank-ordered list of personnel to guide decisions on who could be let go, according to former intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

One apparent casualty of the personnel moves that began under Gabbard is the National Intelligence Council, which was staffed primarily by career officers on loan from other agencies, such as the CIA. The NIC is considered the most authoritative intelligence analysis unit, producing in-depth reports on key topics for top government officials using information gathered by multiple spy agencies.

About 20 NIC personnel have been removed or have chosen to leave, including several senior officers who oversaw the production of analysis on Russia, China, and Europe.

The deputy director for mission integration, Will Ruger, who effectively led the council, was placed on administrative leave, according to three former intelligence officials.

It is unclear whether and to what extent the vacancies will be filled. When the principal deputy intelligence officer for Russia left last year, the position was kept open.

Trump told the Wall Street Journal this month that he’d like to see a “smaller” ODNI. “I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn’t be there,” Trump said, noting that he was referring to holdovers from the Biden and Obama administrations.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton said on the Senate floor Wednesday that “mass firings” were not taking place. He said Pulte told him that “a small handful of front-office personnel” were leaving, “which is not at all uncommon when a senior leader leaves an agency or one comes into an agency.” He added that “around 45 or 50 career officers” were returning to their home agencies.

“I think that’s a step in the right direction,” said Cotton, who has long called for shrinking the ODNI and last year proposed legislation that would cap its full-time staff at 650.

Some agency insiders have heard that there could be subsequent rounds of cuts and that keeping each round relatively small will help avoid congressional blowback, according to one former intelligence official.

Trump’s appointment of Pulte, who has no intelligence or national security experience, has alarmed Democratic lawmakers, as well as some Republicans. Some current and former intelligence officials fear he will use the post to further Trump’s agenda, including weaponizing intelligence against the president’s enemies.

As head of a federal mortgage regulation agency, Pulte has launched mortgage fraud probes of people Trump considers adversaries, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.

Government reorganization efforts under Trump have been marked by chaos and missteps, such as when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency last year dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and conducted mass firings at the State Department and other agencies.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created by Congress in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, after investigations found that the CIA, the FBI and other agencies had failed to share critical information about al-Qaeda plots.

The ODNI had a little more than 2,000 employees at the start of Trump’s second term. By the time Gabbard left last week, the number had shrunk to 1,300, according to congressional aides.

Morale was shaken last year when Gabbard dismissed the chair and vice chair of the NIC after it produced a report that found that the Venezuelan government was most likely not directing the activities of Tren de Aragua, a criminal gang that Trump has vilified. The finding contradicted his rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act and deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process.

“Getting [the agency] smaller makes sense, but this isn’t the way to do it,” said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran CIA operations officer and former Moscow station chief, who has argued that the ODNI should be dismantled.

Sipher said the ODNI’s problem is that it suffers not just from bureaucratic bloat, but from political interference. “The office that was meant to safeguard intelligence from fragmentation has become another perch from which intelligence can be politicized and bent toward partisan narratives,” he wrote in the Bulwark.

This week’s cuts do not appear to have significantly affected the agency’s largest component, the National Counterterrorism Center, which was set up by Congress to be the government’s primary organization for analyzing international terrorism and which in its heyday had more than 1,000 personnel, according to former senior intelligence officials.

Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney and former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, to be the permanent director of national intelligence.

But last week, Trump abruptly froze Clayton’s nomination, prompting the Senate to postpone a confirmation hearing, in a fit of pique over lawmakers’ failure to pass unrelated election legislation.

June 25, 2026
No sign of Pennsylvania at Trump’s 250th fair as state fails to find companies to participate

WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania is not participating in President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair, which kicked off Wednesday, after state leaders failed to find a company willing to represent it at one of the hallmark 250th anniversary events in Washington that some say have become overly partisan.

Pennsylvania’s state government, like those in some other Democratic-led states, had already chosen to not sponsor a booth at the 16-day fair. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office had still been trying to connect Freedom 250, the nonprofit behind the fair, with organizations and companies that could represent the state, according to federal and state sources familiar with the planning.

“Unfortunately, due to the high cost to taxpayers and not being able to secure PA businesses to sponsor the booth, Pennsylvania will not be a participant in the Great American State Fair,” the Pennsylvania Department of Economic and Community Development said in a statement.

The fair, being held at the National Mall to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, was originally planned to feature a pavilion dedicated to each state and territory.

But as tourists visited Thursday on the fair’s first full day, there were no signs of the commonwealth where American democracy was born 250 years ago.

Almost every other state was showcased — with most sending state or local government staff and tourism boards to host educational or interactive exhibits.

Cape May County, a Republican stronghold that is representing New Jersey after the state government declined to participate, featured an 8-ton sand sculpture that a sculptor from Wildwood took 4½ days to create.

An 8-ton sand sculpture promotes Cape May at New Jersey’s pavilion at the Great American State Fair, in Washington, D.C. The pavilion was sponsored by Cape May County, a Republican stronghold that chose to represent New Jersey after the state government declined to participate.

Maryland’s state tourism department handed out information about its vacation hot spots. Staff in the Lone Star State’s pavilion greeted tourists with a cheerful “Welcome to Texas” and offered an interactive space flight exhibit, a replica of the Alamo, and an Austin City Limits music display.

Delaware highlighted Founding Father Caesar Rodney’s ride to cast the decisive vote for independence in Philadelphia.

Delaware’s pavilion at The Great American State Fair highlights Caesar Rodney’s ride to cast the deciding vote for independence.

Pennsylvania joined seven other Democratic-led states — Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington — in declining to participate.

Some of those states had flags outside the pavilions where they would have been located. A few chairs and a sign with the state’s name were also inside.

But in the booth where, according to an interactive map, Pennsylvania’s location was supposed to be, a flag reading just “250″ was outside and the room was blocked off for the fair’s staff.

As recently as this month, Pennsylvania was still seeking companies to represent it, but Rosie Lapowsky, Shapiro’s spokesperson, confirmed Thursday that the state had given up that effort.

“None were interested,” Shapiro said to the New Republic in a story that first reported Pennsylvania’s lack of participation. “It reflects this sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in — that the president has politicized this to a degree that businesses don’t want to participate.”

Trump’s presence has increasingly hung over events tied to the 250th anniversary in the nation’s capital, with the president planning to hold a political rally on the Fourth of July as part of the long-planned fireworks celebrations. It has made the decision to participate by entertainers and states alike more politically fraught.

“Freedom 250 is a nonpartisan organization, full stop — and our track record of collaboration across red, blue, and purple states speaks for itself,” Freedom 250 spokesperson Rachel Reisner said in a statement earlier this month. She did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about Pennsylvania’s lack of involvement or Shapiro’s comments.

Cape May represents New Jersey at the Great American State Fair Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

In New Jersey’s pavilion, visitors were met with not just the sand sculpture but also a new three-minute video highlighting Cape May County and a giant image of George Washington lounging at the beach with a cold drink.

County administrator Kevin Lare said it took a significant amount of work — and at least $150,000 from the county’s tourism budget — to pull it all together in recent weeks. It is worth it, he said, to highlight the county in the hopes of bolstering its largest economic engine — tourism.

“It’s a once-in-a-250-year event,” Lare said. “It’s not something the county will do every year at this level. It’s a celebration of our country, and our board of commissioners still believe we live in the greatest nation in the world. They’re happy to be a part of it.”

Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.

June 25, 2026
Residents are mourning after an apparent arson on their block killed 1 man and damaged 5 homes

Ciara VanBuren was on the couch with her 4-year-old daughter in the next room and her 13-year-old upstairs when she smelled something burning.

She looked out the window of her Franklinville rowhouse a few moments later and saw smoke coming from her neighbor’s window. She heard pounding on the door as neighbors and firefighters checked for anybody inside. In the moments that it took to get outside with her daughters, the front porch had collapsed, with the blaze killing a 69-year-old man and prompting charges for the woman accused of setting it.

Natasha Teague, 38, has been arrested and charged with murder and arson, among other offenses, in connection with the Monday fire, police said Wednesday. Teague had been a frequent presence in the neighborhood over the last year, said neighbors, who said they believed she knew the fire victim’s brother.

Two fires were started on the block that day. In the early morning, police were called to the 3600 block of Percy Street after a small fire was started on the porch, according to the Philadelphia Fire Department. The fire department was not called, and no one was arrested. In the early afternoon, police say, Teague started the second fire, which severely damaged five homes and killed Barry Turner.

A preliminary hearing for Teague is scheduled for July 13. She remained in custody Thursday and no attorney for her was listed in court records.

Turner, 69, grew up in the area and came back to live with his brother, neighbors said. Other residents have described Turner as having been a straight-A student in school, said James Martinez, a 21-year-old who was in the shower when his house started to burn down. He said he did not know Turner well.

Martinez sat by the burned porch, sighing as he looked toward to the homes that were destroyed. “We are missing half a block.”

James Martinez sitting on the porch of a neighbor’s house on Percy Street.

Neighbors said they were saddened and scared by the tragedy. Kendra Olen, who lives a few houses down from the fire with her 66-year-old mother and 22-year-old daughter, said she had not been able to sleep since the fire.

“It’s from fear,” she said. Firefighters knocked down the front door to rescue her mother, and they had to install fans in the house to get rid of the smoke.

This was the second incident of arson reported on the block in less than a month, according to the fire department. On May 23, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into an unoccupied house. No other houses were affected. Before these two incidents, neighbors could not remember a fire starting on their block in recent decades.

The fires concerned and confused neighbors who previously thought of their block as an idyllic place.

Days after the fire, there was a clear blue sky and cool breeze. Many residents sat on their porches as they usually do. Jose Vazquez lounged comfortably, wearing a blue-and-white-striped linen shirt, as he looked out to the row of burned houses.

“Almost everyone knows me, even if I forget their names,” Vazquez, who is 85 and has lived in the neighborhood for decades, said with a laugh. He does not plan to move.

June 25, 2026
Federal judge halts Trump’s election executive order seeking to create a federal voter list

BOSTON — A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president’s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year’s midterm election cycle.

Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits, both filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The judge agreed, noting in her ruling that the provisions of Trump’s order “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”

It was the second ruling in as many days against executive orders Trump has signed seeking oversight of the nation’s elections. A separate ruling Wednesday prohibited an executive order he had signed last year that would have required people to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote.

The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits challenging the order seeking to establish a federal voter list, argued that the motions are premature and that plaintiffs lacked the legal basis to bring their claim based on the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

But in an interim order before Thursday’s ruling, Talwani said the motions pertaining to this year’s election cycle were relevant: “In light of the EO’s specific deadlines over the next three months, and the reality that elections will be occurring throughout this period with the November 3, 2026 midterm occurring in just five months, postponing judicial review is impracticable and may inflict significant hardship on Plaintiffs,” she wrote. That order denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the challenges.

Trump’s executive order, the second one aimed at elections during his second term, comes as he continues to raise the specter of widespread voting by noncitizens as a reason to change election rules. But states already have detailed processes aimed at keeping their voter rolls accurate, and voting by noncitizens has been shown to be rare. It also is a felony that can be punishable by deportation.

Trump issued his second order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued that it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos, and the postal union has objected to the idea of mail carriers policing ballots.

The Postal Service has published a proposed rule required by Trump’s executive order in the Federal Register. Among other things, the rule would not apply to primary elections or overseas ballots.

The lawsuit seeking summary judgment was filed by Democratic attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia. Also signing on were attorneys representing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, which has a Republican attorney general.

“Donald Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional Executive Order sought to undermine eligible voters’ ability to make their voices heard in our democracy,” Pennsylvania Shapiro posted on X Thursday. “Our Constitution is clear: the authority to set our election rules belongs to the states.”

The states also told the court that the move imposes a costly burden on election officials to comply and would spread fear about the possibility of prosecution. Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer for the Trump administration, had argued that no one would be prosecuted for violating the order.

In a separate lawsuit filed against the executive order, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in May agreed with the Trump administration that it was too early to block the order because it had yet to be implemented. That lawsuit was brought by Democratic and civil rights groups, who have appealed.

Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.

June 25, 2026
Gov. Mikie Sherrill proposed an 80% cut to a program that provides job training and support to Hispanic women. The budget is due in days.

Consensa Francisca Silva Silva moved to Camden from Costa Rica more than two years ago knowing nobody. She lived on the street for two months, she said, and then was bouncing from house to house when a young man in the neighborhood told her to check out the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden, one of several such centers in the state.

She went. With help from the program, Silva received food, obtained a work permit, made a down payment for a studio apartment, and started a job at McDonald’s.

That statewide initiative is now facing detrimental cuts under Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s budget proposal. The governor has proposed cutting nearly 80% of its funding, and Silva worries that other immigrant women looking to improve their circumstances will not get the help she received.

“It was very hard to come here without knowing anyone, and it was really hard because at first I couldn’t find any work,” Silva, who is Nicaraguan, said in Spanish, translated by Jesselly De La Cruz, the executive director of the Latino Action Network Foundation, which funds the centers.

The initiative is one of numerous South Jersey programs at risk under Sherrill’s proposal, including the Rowan University veterinary school and a program that provides mental healthcare to abused children. But the cuts are not a done deal.

Sherrill and legislative leaders announced Tuesday they had come to an “agreement” on a budget totaling $60.7 billion, the same price tag Sherrill proposed in March. But it has not been made public and it is unclear how far into the details they have gotten. They have until Tuesday to figure it out.

And the process is still underway. State Sen. Nilsa Cruz-Perez, a Camden Democrat who sits on the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, has been a supporter of the centers. She was unable to speak Wednesday afternoon because she was in a committee budget hearing.

Client Consensa Francisca Silva Silva (right) participates in a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.

On a recent Thursday, Silva participated in a healthy life skills workshop in Spanish at the Camden center, where she learned about taking care of herself as summer temperatures get hotter in the city. About 20 adults clapped for one another with big smiles on their faces, and they received goody bags with sunscreen, lip balm, a towel to keep cool, and a little fan. A young girl played with magnetic tiles and a baby was kept calm, passed between women.

The governor proposed cutting funding for the center’s programs to $535,000, down from more than $2.5 million this year and more than $3 million in 2025. Murphy had proposed a similar cut last year, but the funding was restored during budget negotiations.

Hispanic Women’s Resource Centers were established through 1991 legislation to address the wage gap for Latinas. New Jersey is one of the states with the biggest wage gap for Latina workers, according to the National Women’s Law Center.

Staff members observe from back of the room during a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.

The Latino Action Network Foundation funds these resource centers in partnership with six nonprofits across 14 sites, including five in South Jersey. The Camden center is located at the nonprofit Healthy Families and Communities, and there are centers in Vineland in Cumberland County, Hammonton in Atlantic County, Pennsville in Salem County, and Rio Grande in Cape May County.

Sherrill’s proposal would “drastically cut” the number of resource centers, and sites in Hammonton and in Lakewood, in Ocean County, would likely be on the chopping block, De La Cruz said, adding that services would need to be cut in eight of 11 counties.

Martha Infante, 38, who lives in Pennsauken, said she was disoriented when she moved to South Jersey from the Dominican Republic. But through the Camden center, she found out how to apply for work online and learned basic English. She obtained coats for her daughters’ first U.S. winter, and a staffer accompanied her to a New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles center to get her driver’s license.

“I came here and my mind was all over the place, I didn’t know where things were,” she said in Spanish.

She now works as a home health aide, thanks to training she got through the center, and even participated in a program where she learned about advocating for her community in Trenton.

“Don’t cut these funds, Gov. Sherrill,” she pleaded. “Don’t cut the funds! This is like a family. It’s like a home for the community.”

Client Martha Infante (left) talks with staff member Chailienisse Vega (right) after participating in a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.

Some of the women in the program are fleeing domestic violence and seeking financial independence. Others are struggling to get a work permit, or may have lost a family member who helped pay the bills to deportation. A lot of former “Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — utilize the center as well, De La Cruz said.

The need for the centers has only escalated under President Donald Trump’s second administration, she said.

The social worker-turned-executive said she was surprised by the severity of Sherrill’s proposed cut, especially because of the governor’s efforts to push back against Trump’s immigration policies.

A 2023 Rutgers study funded by the Latino Action Network Foundation found that the most popular services at these resource centers were English-language classes and employment services, such as job referrals, assistance filling out applications, resume writing, and interview preparation.

Staff member Andreina Pardo pauses to stretch with participants as she leads a workshop at the Hispanic Women’s Resource Center in Camden Thursday, June 11, 2026.

“Aside from helping them with the technical aspects of job hunting, the assistance from the Centers seemed to provide a boost of confidence for many of the women, giving them an additional push to apply for positions even if they felt hesitant to do so at first,” the study said.

Gladys, 48, who declined to give her last name due to concerns over her safety, said in Spanish that the free English courses made her feel like she could “come up for air and breathe” after not being able to communicate.

The Camden resident had been an ecologist in Nicaragua and has gotten involved in the center’s community garden. She said she would love to pursue a career teaching children about the environment, but her plans are on hold because her work visa was canceled.

In the meantime, Gladys said, activities at the center like art classes have made her feel less alone. She has been able to connect with women in the same situation as her, and those who migrated to the U.S. earlier who can give her advice from their experiences.

“Maybe my circumstances don’t change, but my emotional well-being changes because I’m able to connect with others,” she said in Spanish.

June 25, 2026
Bill to raise minimum wage to $25 an hour will be introduced in Senate

The minimum wage would be raised to $25 an hour under a new bill to be introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) on Thursday, in a bid to enthuse the working-class voters who have abandoned the Democratic Party.

The legislation, dubbed the Living Wage for All Act, has a companion bill already introduced in the House.

Murphy, whose name is frequently floated as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said he is pushing his party to take more aggressive stances on affordability, following its punishing defeats in the 2024 elections.

“Democrats need to offer solutions that are as big as the problems people are facing,” Murphy said in an interview. “The way you solve people’s basic economic problem — not having enough money to pay the bills — is by making a minimum wage be a living wage.”

The bill would incrementally increase the minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25, with the first jump to $12 an hour in the first year of enactment. Major corporations would have six years to work up to a $25 minimum wage, while smaller employers would have a 13-year runway. The legislation would also do away with subminimum wages for tipped workers, such as restaurant servers, youth workers and workers with disabilities. Nearly half of the American workforce makes less than $25 an hour.

The legislation is unlikely to get very far in this Congress, with Republicans in control of both chambers, but the $25-an-hour push is one of the more significant proposals aimed at boosting Americans’ wages, which have been rising but not as quickly as inflation, especially in recent months.

Some 34 states, territories or districts, including Washington, D.C., have increased the minimum wage above the federal minimum, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, a left-leaning advocacy group that worked with Murphy on the bill, credited support for a $25 minimum wage for primary wins in competitive races in Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California. She said she has heard support for the proposal from liberal and MAGA voters alike.

The $25 figure was drawn from calculations by MIT that analyzed a living wage, which takes into account costs such as food, childcare, healthcare, housing and transportation.

Democrats have long advocated raising the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25, but Murphy’s bill would set the highest floor of any proposal in the Senate. Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D., Ill.) is leading a House version of the bill, which she introduced earlier this year with wide support across the Democratic caucus. A similar bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) would set a $17 minimum wage and has 33 Democratic senators as cosponsors, including Murphy.

Murphy’s bill also has the backing of Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), Andy Kim (New Jersey), and Ron Wyden (Oregon).

Congress has not raised the federal minimum wage since 2009, though only about 1% of workers make $7.25 an hour or less.

Business groups have often campaigned against raising the minimum wage, suggesting that the economy works best when employers are responsive to market forces.

A higher federal minimum wage could create “really damaging consequences,” including businesses closing or cutting jobs, especially in rural areas where the cost of living is low, said Ryan Bourne, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute.

He said the rising average wage shows that state and local governments are already responding to market changes.

“I think it makes much more sense for it to be set at a local level where policymakers have a better sense of the local industries,” Bourne said.

Murphy called those kinds of arguments a “red herring,” saying cities that have already established a $15 minimum wage have not seen major adverse effects. He said the staggered adoption would help assuage employers’ concerns.

“The business community cried murder, and the job losses they predicted did not materialize,” Murphy said.

Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative and a former Sanders aide, helped craft a $15 minimum wage proposal that Democrats attempted to include in their climate and economic policy bill in 2021. He said the surge in wage growth as the economy recovered from the coronavirus pandemic has led more liberal policymakers to believe that a $15 minimum wage would now be too low.

“It’s also an organizing tool,” he said. “It’s something big and bold that people can hang on to and run on and be able to see the Democrats are fighting for them.”

So far, most congressional action has tried to address affordability through tax cuts, including the child tax credit, covid-era Affordable Care Act credits or the numerous tax cuts in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill.

While Murphy supports programs such as the child tax credits and student loan forgiveness, he said tax cuts have proved insufficient in motivating voters.

“People don’t want to be written a check. People want to work for pay,” Murphy said. “[Tax breaks] are designed to compensate for a rigged system. Why don’t we just unrig the system?”

June 25, 2026
Rep. Tom Kean, missing for months, is back home in New Jersey

Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., who has been missing from Washington for nearly four months with little explanation, is back home in New Jersey.

He could be seen from the street Wednesday evening, standing in a brightly lit front room of his Westfield home just before 8:45 p.m.

“It’s good to see you,” he said after a reporter for the New York Times rang his doorbell. He was wearing a dark suit and a red tie. “I’ll talk to you next week,” he said. “Thank you.”

Kean’s wife, Rhonda, stood in the background, smiling pleasantly. He declined additional comment and closed the door.

Aides had said that Kean, 57, was being treated for a health condition and was expected to fully recover, but had offered no additional details as their boss missed more than 100 floor votes since the middle of March.

Kean, a Republican, is running for a third term in November in one of the country’s most competitive midterm races. His absence from the campaign trail, though, had left even some of his biggest Republican boosters frustrated.

A spokesperson for Kean, Harrison Neely, said last week that Kean was expected to return to Washington on June 30. He declined to say how long Kean had been home or to offer any additional details about the representative’s long absence.

“He will be fully transparent on the 30th,” Neely wrote in a text message.

Earlier this month, Kean, in absentia, locked in the Republican nomination for his 7th District seat; he was running unopposed. Democrats selected Rebecca Bennett, 39, a former Navy helicopter pilot.

The Democratic Party considers Kean’s seat one of its best pickup opportunities as it seeks to tip the balance of power in Washington and had been aggressively targeting the race long before he began missing votes in Washington.

Kean was last spotted on Capitol Hill on March 5. He spoke that day during a committee hearing and cast a crucial “yea” vote in support of funding President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and moving to end a government shutdown.

Then, he seemingly vanished. Neighbors in Westfield said there had been no obvious sign of Kean for months, and the family’s vacation house in Bay Head, N.J., appeared shuttered the weekend before Memorial Day. Year-round residents of Fishers Island, N.Y., where the Kean family owns a large estate, said they had not seen him, either.

Kean’s aides repeatedly insisted that he had no plans to abandon his reelection effort and that he was expected to return to work “soon,” even as they refused to discuss the medical condition that had sidelined him.

In May, after a debate between the four Democrats vying to run against him, Dan Scharfenberger, Kean’s chief of staff, offered a cryptic explanation for why there had been no sightings of the representative in Washington or in his New Jersey district. “There’s no cameras where Tom is,” he said, and did not elaborate.

During his absence, Kean has nonetheless bought and sold stock, introduced remarks into the Congressional Record and urged House colleagues from afar to oppose Ireland’s effort to limit trade with Israel.

A handful of Republican leaders in the 7th District’s six counties reported getting calls from Kean. And his office has released two statements attributed to Kean, including one on primary day, June 2, when he made no public appearances.

“Right now I am focused on my recovery and under the advice of healthcare professionals,” the June 2 statement said.

The statement indicated that he planned to be “completely transparent as to the nature of my medical condition.”

“I understand the need for transparency on this matter,” he wrote, “and I look forward to sharing my experience with the public.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

June 25, 2026
Judge throws out federal suit against 4 N.J. ‘sanctuary’ cities

A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department that accused four New Jersey cities of having “sanctuary” policies that shield immigrants in the U.S. illegally from federal immigration enforcement.

Justice Department lawyers had sued the mayors and City Council members of Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Paterson last month as tensions were rising between local governments in the Garden State and immigration authorities.

The complaint accused local officials of thwarting federal immigration enforcement by impeding access to immigrants in local custody, restricting the ability of local officers to turn over immigrants to agents, and barring “willing local officers from providing mission-critical information to federal immigration authorities.”

But Judge Evelyn Padin, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, ruled that the federal lawsuit had “a fundamental flaw” because it challenged only the cities’ policies and did not take into account an order from the state attorney general’s office, known as the immigrant trust directive, that dictates how local law enforcement officers must engage with immigration authorities.

That 2008 directive, which has been upheld by previous court rulings, was not raised in the lawsuit, Padin wrote. That means, as a legal matter, the federal government lacks the standing to file the suit.

The judge dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, meaning the Justice Department could refile it. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately return a request for comment.

The ruling came as protesters have swarmed Delaney Hall, an immigration facility in Newark, with nearly daily demonstrations.

Local officials praised Padin’s ruling, saying the immigrant trust directive was one key to maintaining good relationships between local police agencies and immigrants without permanent legal status. Police departments depend on cooperation in immigrant neighborhoods to stop crime.

Amol Sinha, the executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, wrote in a statement that the sanctuary policies “help people access public services” without fear of being detained, separated from their families and perhaps deported.

“Public safety is strengthened when people can report crimes, and public health is improved when people can seek medical care,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

June 25, 2026