The Justice Department plans to scrap longstanding rules and qualifications for immigration judges and create a new policy where it can appoint any lawyer it wants to temporarily preside over cases, reported Government Executive on Wednesday.
“The change gives Attorney General Pam Bondi wide latitude in selecting officials to oversee asylum and other cases pending before the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that runs the nation’s immigration courts,” said the report. “That authority could provide President Trump with additional power to withhold legal status from immigrants and expedite his mass deportation efforts.”
Immigration judges are different from typical so-called “Article III” judges, like the Supreme Court, courts of appeals, and district courts, who are constitutional officers appointed for life; they are instead “Article I” judges who were authorized by Congress to serve at the pleasure of the presidential administration and hear narrow types of subject matter issues.
“Since 2014, the department has allowed only former immigration judges, administrative law judges from other agencies or Justice attorneys with at least 10 years of experience related to immigration law to serve as temporary immigration judges, or TIJs,” said the report. “In its update, to be issued Thursday as a final rule, EOIR called those parameters overly restrictive, noting it has hired fewer than a dozen temporary judges since the Obama administration put them into place.”
The shortage of immigration judges available to hear cases has been a contentious issue for years, and was part of the reason for the massive backlog of cases for the surge of migrants in the years prior to the Trump administration.
A bipartisan immigration deal cut in the final years of the Biden administration would have established more funding for immigration courts to operate on an expedited basis; however, Trump worked behind the scenes to tank the deal among Republican lawmakers.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent who faced criminal charges for assaulting police officers in California has been found dead, authorities confirmed Wednesday.
Isaiah Anthony Hodgson, 29, was discovered inside a Riverside County home, east of Los Angeles, on Friday, just days after a recent court appearance. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a call in Lake Elsinore around 12:45 p.m. on Aug. 22, where Hodgson was pronounced dead at the scene, NBC News reported.
No cause of death has been released. The sheriff’s office said the investigation is ongoing, though no foul play is suspected.
Hodgson had been arrested on July 7 in Long Beach after what prosecutors described as a drunken night that began in a women’s bathroom and ended in a confrontation with officers.
According to ABC7, Hodgson, who was carrying a handgun, was accused of entering the women’s bathroom of a Shoreline Village restaurant on July 7 and refusing to leave. When officers arrived, Hodgson reportedly “became agitated and physical with the officers.” One officer sustained injuries during the arrest.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed Hodgson was employed as a border agent at the time of his arrest. He had pleaded not guilty to three felony charges of resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. Hodgson had a preliminary hearing scheduled for late September, according to court documents viewed by NBC.
His death drew scrutiny online, as Hodgson has been involved in the chaotic June arrest of 20-year-old Adrian Andrew Martinez, a Walmart employee accused of impeding federal officers conducting immigration detainments outside of Martinez’s store in the Los Angeles suburb of Pico Rivera.
Many critics tied it to President Donald Trump’s ongoing push for ramped-up ICE raids across Los Angeles.
One Threads user captioned a local news clip, “Remember that ICE agent who harassed a brown U.S. citizen, then went drunk to Long Beach harassing a woman and fighting a cop? He’s now been found dead.”
The post racked up more than a thousand comments, many indifferent to Hodgson’s fate.
One user didn’t hold back:, “Normally I wouldn’t say this out of respect but in this case…the world is just a tad bit better off without him. Hopefully his dear leader won’t be far behind.”
A similar tone continued with another user adding, “Yeah, he knew he was guilty for his sins and couldn’t deal with his guilt. We’re going to see a lot of it!” another commenter added.
Hodgson’s arrest had already made headlines in Southern California. His booking photo circulated after Long Beach police said he was heavily intoxicated during the scuffle. Prosecutors noted his law enforcement position when filing charges, but CBP at the time only said it was “aware of the arrest” and pledged cooperation with local authorities.
The agency has not commented publicly on his death.
For the second day in a row, President Donald Trump insisted he is not a dictator, but also insisted that many Americans would like to have one running the country. Some critics are calling his remarks a “trial balloon.”
“So the line is that I’m a dictator — but I stop crime,” Trump said at his televised Cabinet meeting on Tuesday (video below). “So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’ But I’m not a dictator. I just know how to stop crime.”
Those remarks echo ones he made just one day earlier in the Oval Office while attacking Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker.
“I have some slob like Pritzker criticizing us before we even go there,” he said of his plan to deploy the National Guard to Chicago. “I made the statement that next should be Chicago, ’cause, as you all know, Chicago’s a killing field right now. And they don’t acknowledge it, and they say, ‘We don’t need him. Freedom, freedom. He’s a dictator, he’s a dictator.’”
“A lot of people are saying, maybe we like a dictator,” Trump mused. “I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and a smart person.”
Declaring that an American president “even suggesting that Americans want to do away with democracy and be ruled” by a dictator is “chilling,” Rolling Stone on Monday noted that “Trump has been ruling like an authoritarian since retaking office in January, repeatedly thumbing his nose at Congress, the Constitution, and any other check on presidential power.”
CNN’s Aaron Blake, even before Trump’s second “I’m not a dictator” attestation, wrote: “Many people are increasingly entertaining the idea of a dictator. They are his supporters.”
“They don’t necessarily say, ‘Yes, I want a dictator.’ But polling shows Republicans have edged in that direction – to a pretty remarkable degree.”
“Perhaps the most startling poll on this came last year,” Blake explained. “A University of Massachusetts Amherst survey asked about Trump’s comment that he wanted to be a dictator, but only for a day,” during the campaign. “Trump said it was a joke, but 74% of Republicans endorsed the idea.”
He noted that a “Pew Research Center poll early this year showed 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents agreed that many of the country’s problems could be better solved ‘if Donald Trump didn’t have to worry so much about Congress and the courts.’”
And, Blake added, “as many 3 or 4 in 10” Republicans, according to several polls, are “endorsing that kind of power.”
Critics expressed outrage.
Journalist Ahmed Baba observed: “This is the second day in a row he’s said this. This is an intentional normalization effort.”
Journalist Aaron Rupar wrote, “note how Trump on a daily basis is trying to normalize the idea that he’s a dictator.”
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) wrote: “Deploying the military to cities. Breaking laws. Attacking judges. Firing generals, economists, and central bankers who speak truth to power. Praising autocrats who hate America. Republican officials have given up on the rule of law. They obey the law of the ruler. But in America, law is king.”
Hedge fund manager Spencer Hakimian wrote: “You are all frogs in a boiling pot.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Barely more than one-third of Americans approve of how President Donald Trump is doing his job, and on key issues, his support is underwater.
Just thirty-seven percent of Americans give President Trump good marks overall, while more than half the country, fifty-five percent, disapprove, according to the latest Quinnipiac University national poll.
The partisan divide is large, with 84% of Republicans saying he is doing a good job, and 98% of Democrats saying he is not. The majority of independents, 58%, agree with Democrats and disapprove.
Just less than three in ten women (29%) approve of President Trump’s performance, while 46% of men do.
On crime, the majority (54%) disapprove of Trump’s performance, just 42% approve.
On the economy, fewer than four in ten (39%) approve, and 57% disapprove.
Similarly, on trade, just 38% approve, while 56% disapprove.
On his efforts to end the Ukraine war, a majority (52%) disapprove, while just 40% approve.
“Voters have little confidence in President Trump’s effort to broker peace in Ukraine, and most voters don’t trust Vladimir Putin to keep a peace deal if one were reached,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy wrote. “And though the president has ruled out putting U.S. troops in the war theater to keep the peace, four out of 10 voters would support it,”
And two-thirds of Americans (67%) disapprove of his handling of the Epstein files.
According to the non-partisan group Political Polls, this is Trump’s lowest approval rating in this term.
Critics and strategists weighed in.
Mike Madrid, the top Republican Latino political consultant, remarked, “Brutal poll results for Trump. Just brutal.”
“Striking” is how The New Republic’s Greg Sargent described the poll’s finding on Trump deploying the National Guard, and he noted that Trump’s “overall approval on crime is cratering.”
“Predictably, Trump’s terrible overreach is again turning people against him in an area where he was previously perceived as strong, just as on immigration and the economy,” wrote Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “Per Quinnipiac, independents oppose his DC occupation 61-34. Overall: 56-41 against.”
The Department of Homeland Security is now barring states and volunteer groups that receive government funds from helping undocumented immigrants, according to a Washington Post analysis of updated guidelines and interviews with Federal Emergency Management Agency employees. The new rules also require groups to cooperate with immigration officials and enforcement operations.
Several disaster assistance groups, FEMA employees and emergency management experts said the new requirements in the department’s fiscal 2025 aid contracts would make it harder for nonprofits to help the most vulnerable people in the aftermath of a disaster. Some members of the national volunteer disaster group network also questioned whether the new requirements are constitutional and point out that they seem to violate some local and state laws that prevent asking about a person’s immigration status.
By accepting the federal grants and awards, the new documents state, volunteer organizations that help after disasters must agree to not “operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”
That could put groups that provide food, housing, mental health support and other assistance in disaster-stricken states in the position of having to verify aid recipients’ legal status before providing assistance, experts said.
“There is no historical context for this,” said Scott Robinson, an emergency management expert and FEMA historian who teaches at Arizona State University. “The notion that the federal government would use these operations for surveillance is entirely new territory.”
The affected contractors include faith-based groups and nonprofits such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross, which states usually rely on to set up shelters and deliver basic assistance. They often serve communities with large Latino populations, where people often have trouble getting federal aid because they are uninsured or live in multigenerational households so they can’t all apply to FEMA. They serve those who have lost their homes or incomes after a catastrophic event but are not in the United States legally. Such humanitarian organizations typically do not ask about religious beliefs, political affiliation or documentation status when offering aid.
The federal government first awards funds to states, which then bring in organizations once they have accepted the contract and its rules. The DHS document states an award recipient, such as a state, must make all contractors and sub-recipients follow its terms.
In a statement, acting FEMA press secretary Daniel Llargues said any recipient of a DHS or FEMA grant “is required to follow the DHS Standard Terms & Conditions,” noting most funding is awarded directly to states, tribes and territories.
Another new section of the document states all award recipients must comply with federal statutes that prohibit state and local governments from keeping information about a person’s immigration status from DHS. They are also barred from “harboring, concealing, or shielding from detection illegal aliens”; have to agree to “provide access to detainees, such as when an immigration officer seeks to interview a person who might be a removable alien”; and not leak or publicize an enforcement operation.
“This is likely to have a chilling effect on any undocumented person” seeking assistance, Robinson said, adding that it might even deter someone who fears their legal status may be questioned.
While the federal government has always had wide-ranging authority when setting conditions for grants, a review of contracts going back to 2016, the first year they were posted, found past DHS contracts for federal assistance have not had any language about undocumented immigrants. One FEMA official said the new regulations move away from past terms that focused on civil rights and “place more emphasis on exclusionary powers the government has.”
These standards are not just limited to nonprofits but could apply to all applicants, sub-applicants and even other federal agencies that work with FEMA, such as search-and-rescue groups, said a former senior FEMA official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter.
Officials at disaster volunteer organizations across the U.S., many of whom embed all across communities after major hurricanes, floods or fires, said they were caught off guard by the new conditions. Several members raised concerns that federal contracts cannot make nonprofits violate local laws that protect people’s privacy. The bulk of disaster volunteer groups that work with the federal government are also faith-based organizations, which some groups said could create constitutional concerns.
“We see this as a free-exercise issue under our First Amendment rights,” said Peter Gudaitis, the executive director of New York Disaster Interfaith Services. “First, the federal government has never attempted to tell the nonprofit sector who we can and cannot serve. Further, as a faith-based organization we have the right to determine who we serve.”
The new terms and conditions also target diversity, equity and inclusion policies, stating that the department’s awards cannot be used “to advance or promote DEI and/or DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) or discriminatory equity ideology.”
To meet the needs of the communities they serve, nonprofits often hire Spanish speakers and people of color, and Gudaitis and other members of the nation’s disaster volunteer network questioned whether the anti-DEI provision would affect this approach.
There are states and cities that don’t allow such organizations to ask about a person’s immigration status. In New York, for example, disaster workers can register anyone in any affected Zip code regardless of their citizenship.
These groups, represented by a broader umbrella group called National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, are grappling with the new requirements, said the Rev. David Guadalupe, the organization’s interim president who also runs Puerto Rico’s volunteer disaster aid group. Each group will have to make an independent decision as to whether they can and will abide by these terms when a state asks them to assist, he said. That could put many groups in a very difficult position, he said, and goes against an ethos to serve anyone in need.
“Their shared mission is to serve all disasters’ survivors with compassion and dignity, especially those most vulnerable, and to work together to help communities recover,” he said.
The network reached out to the administration on Monday about the new terms and is awaiting a reply, Guadalupe said. It is hosting a town hall next week to discuss the new policy and how its members “will proactively prepare for impacts” on the funds they rely on to manage disasters, according to an email obtained by The Post.
These groups often work with states through FEMA’s Disaster Case Management Program. In its description of the program, DHS notes, “without federal support, the state may be inundated and unable to address the size and scope of the needs or unable to sustain the length of time the services are needed.”
There are already strict rules surrounding federal assistance that states and subrecipients, such as volunteer groups and nonprofits, have to follow. These entities have to cooperate with compliance reviews and investigations; they are audited several times a year; and, according to the conditions, have to give “DHS access to examine and copy records, accounts, and other documents and sources of information related to the federal award and permit access to facilities and personnel.”
If a state rejects these conditions, an agency official explained, it would be ineligible for FEMA funds.
Nonprofits and disaster response groups worry that the terms could have a ripple effect on mixed-status households, where the parents might be undocumented but their children are citizens, which means they would be entitled to federal disaster assistance.
“So will our government now deprive a household with a citizen member of assistance because undocumented people live in the household, too?” asked a state VOAD chair who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “Is the federal government saying that a disaster case manager can’t even advise someone where to get help if they are undocumented or their family is? Is that really what we’ve come to?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/08/27/dhs-fema-undocumented-immigrants-aid-groups-grants
Trump’s possible connection to convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein — who allegedly died by suicide in prison — may be the one thing that undermines his base of support and causes his Republican loyalists in Congress to turn on him. This makes it politically explosive.
With Congress now returning from August recess and the media and Congress looking into “Epsteingate,” the issue will either grow or disappear in the next few weeks.
Roughly half of the country now believes that Trump was involved in crimes committed by Epstein, according to recent polls. And more than two-thirds believes that the Trump administration is hiding information about Epstein.
Before the 2024 presidential election, both Trump and JD Vance called for the release of files related to Epstein. On February 21, Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an appearance on Fox News, said the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
But the Trump regime still hasn’t released any trove of “Epstein files.” In fact, on July 7, the Justice Department released a memo saying it had found “no incriminating ‘client list’” for Epstein, directly contradicting Bondi.
Then came publication by The Wall Street Journal of what it said was a risqué birthday note Trump wrote to celebrate Epstein’s 50th birthday, prompting Trump to claim that “the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.” The next day, Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against Journal over its coverage of his relationship with Epstein, including the birthday note that Trump says he didn’t write.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche recently interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-defendant who was convicted of sex trafficking minors and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Late Friday, the Justice Department released transcripts of that interview in which Maxwell praises Trump, claims she never saw Trump engage in improper or illegal acts during his long friendship with Epstein, and that there’s no hidden list of powerful clients.
Maxwell’s credibility is questionable. She has a big incentive to tell Trump and his lackeys exactly what they want to hear because she has been trying to overturn or reduce her sentence. Right after her interview she was transferred to a minimum-security prison, a highly unusual move for a convicted sex offender.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has received the first tranche of the Justice Department’s documents in response to its subpoena for all Epstein-related files. Democrats on the Committee claim that fewer 3 percent of the documents are new.
“Epsteingate” has all the hallmarks of a cover-up. Will it bring Trump down? Here are three likely scenarios:
1. Epsteingate keeps growing until it reveals a “smoking gun” that brings Trump down. Assume Trump continues to try to deflect attention from his connection with Epstein by, for example, occupying several American cities and threatening war with Venezuela. Yet the more he tries, the more evidence of his involvement with Epstein mounts. Eventually, a “smoking gun” emerges that forces even Trump loyalists in the House and Senate to vote to impeach and convict him.
2. Nothing comes of it, although it continues to percolate. Periodically, a damaging headline emerges, as more evidence comes out about Trump’s close connections to Epstein. But Trump and his lackeys continue to deflect attention from the stories. His loyalists in Congress refuse to probe any deeper into the issue. He distracts the media with so many controversial neofascist maneuvers that the stories never become a full-blown threat to Trump.
3. The whole Epstein story is a distraction from Trump’s neofascist moves. In reality, the Epstein story is a continuing distraction from what Trump is really doing — his takeover of the nation’s public and private sectors and his alliance with Putin to carve up the world. Every time a new story emerges about the connection between Trump and Epstein, the Trump regime takes more initiatives that violate the laws and the Constitution, but they do so not to distract from his Epstein connection but to take advantage of the public’s obsession with Epstein to bury the regime’s horrific moves.
Federal employees at the Department of the Interior are reportedly raising alarms over a weekly video series titled “Inside Interior,” which they describe as “propaganda” — a slick, over‑the‑top portrayal of President Donald Trump and agency leadership, complete with staged scenes and breathless narration.
The Daily Beast reported Wednesday that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, once tagged “Diva Doug” for requesting political appointees to bake chocolate chip cookies and summoning a U.S. Park Police helicopter for his own personal use, now finds himself at the center of growing backlash within his own department.
Staffers deride the Environment and Natural Resources Agency as “The Department of Propaganda,” a moniker born from their mounting frustration with weekly “Inside Interior” videos, widely criticized for their slick, “Dear Leader”-style presentation and unabashed praise of Trump and Burgum to a lesser extent.
The latest installment, according to the report, touts that “Interior made major moves to strengthen America’s energy future, protect taxpayer interests, and keep our nation’s capital city safe.”
But the true inflection point came with a July 4 special that left many shaken. The clip opens with Trump dancing to the Village People’s YMCA, then cuts to him exiting Air Force One, greeted by cheering construction workers, before returning to more footage of Trump, much to the chagrin of those compelled to watch.
The report further noted that the narration heralds the day with a patriotic fervor likened to authoritarian regimes: “Happy Birthday America!” “Today we celebrate 249 years of American liberty, freedom and strength and we’re doing it under the fearless leadership of President Donald J. Trump, who reminds us every day what true patriotism looks like as he works tirelessly to make America great again.”
Critics among the staff have dubbed the presentation “North Korea‑worthy,” according to the report.
Meanwhile, many already felt demoralized by deep cuts tied to tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative and a policy shift prioritizing fossil fuel development over conservation.
A National Park Service employee told The Beast: “I have never seen a more blatant and deplorable display of propaganda on behalf of the Trump administration.”
Adding insult to injury, they note, “They even called for the USA to celebrate the 4th ‘the MAGA way!’
“Daily Blast” Podcaster Greg Sargent reports rural Trump voters are starting to feel the pain from their November vote for President Donald Trump.
“There’s the Trump tariffs, which hit farm country hard. There are these enormous health care cuts, … which are creating these huge problems for rural hospitals across the country. Again, that’s a real lifeline in those places. Many of them have very little access to health care,” Sargent told guest Lynlee Thorne, political director for organizing network RuralGroundGame.org.
Thorne’s organization calls and visits registered Western Virginia voters who don’t consistently participate in recent elections, alerting them of upcoming cuts to Medicaid and the insurance marketplaces as well as cost increases from Trump’s tariffs.
She said breaking the news to residents has not been easy for the organization’s field workers.
“People are stunned that this is happening,” Thorne told Sargent. “Sometimes our volunteers are emotionally struggling because they feel like they are breaking horrific news to people in real time. And people are p—— and scared and feel a little blindsided. So, while those of us who have been paying attention are well aware of these cuts, this is devastating news to a lot of people in rural spaces.
A recent New York Times article covered the anger of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) at her fellow Republicans’ willingness to eliminate pivotal public radio broadcasts her largely rural state, and others. Public radio is often the only lifeline to local news and weather because piped in music and talk radio — which is frequently the only signal on rural station radios — rarely alerts listeners to hazardous storms and local events.
Murkowski told the Times she was outraged by her co-workers readiness to deprive their voters of critical information for Trump.
“You had, I think, a blind allegiance to the president’s desires when it came to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Murkowski told the Times. “… what I … object to is when we, as the authorizers and the appropriators, do our job, and then we have the White House come around and say: ‘We don’t care what you did. We want you to do this.’”
Sargent said for years Republican lawmakers “could be counted on to defend their constituents a little bit” despite their prejudice against public radio. But now “Trump comes along and waves a magic wand, they just fall in line.”
“It’s a real gut punch,” said Thorne. “And I think something for people to keep in mind is that it’s not just the radio stations — because a lot of rural people even now cannot get radio reception in their rural area from their home. So often when there is a crisis or a power outage or something similar, people are having to go to their neighbors who might be able to get radio reception and hear that news through the grapevine.”
Hear the “Daily Blast” podcast and read an edited podcast transcript at this link.
President Donald Trump is taking a much more direct, hands-on approach to governing in his second term compared to his first four years in the White House, according to a new report.
In a Wednesday article, the Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey and Annie Linskey reported that the second Trump administration is moving with a decidedly faster tempo given that there are far fewer people in the Trump White House today who are willing to rein in his most impulsive decision-making. This has led to Trump making numerous unprecedented moves, including his attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors and teeing up a showdown with the Supreme Court — something that has never been done in the Fed’s 112-year history.
Despite his status as a term-limited commander-in-chief constrained by the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution from running for another four years, Trump nonetheless keeps “Trump 2028” campaign hats on display in the Oval Office and shows them off to visitors. Earlier this week, he toyed with the idea of being a “dictator,” saying that while some unnamed “people” had told him that they might “like” to have a dictator, he didn’t like dictators and refused to describe himself as such (Trump said during his 2024 campaign that he would be a dictator, “but only on Day One.”)
The Journal reported that Trump is more “in the weeds” in the day-to-day operations of federal agencies, ordering his Cabinet secretaries to make certain hiring and firing decisions and floating various ideas. He also reportedly spends much more time at the White House, “blaring music with doors of the Oval Office open, working later into the evening and telling his advisers that he is having fun.”
This is a sharp contrast to his first term, where he was dogged by multiple investigations like former DOJ Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump also lamented about his treatment at the hands of the Federal Reserve and the Kennedy Center after his first election. Trump has since commandeered the Kennedy Center and installed himself as chairman, with little to no pushback from his inner circle. Even his chief of staff, Susie Wiles (who managed his 2024 campaign), has taken a more lenient approach to her boss, insisting that her role is to manage the staff rather than the president.
According to Douglas Brinkley, who is a presidential historian at Rice University, Trump’s ultimate goal is “having control over all American institutions, adding: “He seems to want to grab everyone by the neck and say ‘I’m in charge.’”
“I think he’s learned there is not much that can really stop him from what he wants,” Marc Short, who was Trump’s first-term director of legislative affairs, told the Journal.
