Category Archives: Uncategorized

Roll Call: Republicans move to change Senate rules to speed confirmation of some nominees

Posted on by
Reply

Facing insurmountable backlog, Thune moves to allow consideration of multiple nominees as a group

Senate Majority Leader John Thune took the first procedural step Monday toward changing the chamber’s rules to speed up the confirmation of lower-level Trump nominees, saying the move is necessary to combat obstruction from Democrats.

Democrats this Congress have forced the GOP majority to use valuable floor time on procedural votes, slowing down the confirmation process and leaving spots unfilled in the Trump administration.

Republicans argue Democrats are destroying a Senate tradition of quickly confirming noncontroversial nominees regardless of the party of the president. But Democrats contend the posture is a needed negotiating tool as Trump has burned through government norms and at times embraced an authoritarian attitude of executive power.

Thune, R-S.D., late Monday asked for immediate consideration of an executive resolution that would authorize the en bloc consideration in executive session of certain nominations. In order to place it on the calendar, he said, he objected to his own request.

The resolution now lies over one calendar day. A copy of the resolution was not immediately available Monday night.

Thune said in a floor speech earlier Monday that after Trump’s eight months in office this term, no civilian nominee has been confirmed by voice vote.

He compared that to other presidents: George W. Bush and Barack Obama each had 90 percent of their civilian nominees confirmed on voice vote, and Trump in his first term and Biden had more than 50 percent.

“It’s time to take steps to restore Senate precedent and codify in Senate rules what was once understood to be standard practice, and that is the Senate acting expeditiously on presidential nominations to allow a president to get his team into place,” Thune said.

Thune said Republicans would seek to speed up confirmations. The change would apply to nominees at the sub-Cabinet level and not Article III judicial nominees, he said.

The objective, he said, was “confirming groups of nominees all together so the president can have his team in place and so the Senate can focus on the important legislative work in its charge.”

The Senate would have to take another 600 votes before the end of the year to clear the current backlog of nominees on the calendar and at committee, Thune said.

“That’s more votes than this record-breaking Senate has taken all year up until now,” Thune said. “There is no practical way that we could come close to filling all the vacancies in the four years of this administration, no matter how many hours the Senate works.”

Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., slammed the GOP effort, warning Republicans that they would come to regret the decision to “go nuclear.”

“What will stop Donald Trump from nominating even worse individuals than we’ve seen to date, knowing this chamber will rubber-stamp anything he wishes?” Schumer said.

The move is the latest in a history of changing Senate rules to lower vote thresholds in the chamber.

Under then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Republicans in 2017 removed the 60-vote requirement for confirming Supreme Court justices as they sought to confirm Neil M. Gorsuch.

Years before, in 2013, Senate Democrats did away with that vote threshold for other judicial nominees.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, some Senate Democrats have sought to use the lower-level confirmations as a pressure point.

In May, Schumer announced a hold on all Justice Department nominees after the administration agreed to accept a plane from Qatar. That move from Schumer prevented U.S. attorney nominees from moving forward on voice votes.

The same month, Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, put a hold on Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

Durbin also warned he might do so for other U.S. attorney nominees who reach the Senate floor.

In February, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, announced he was putting a blanket hold on all Trump administration State Department nominees over the shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Just ram King Donald’s incompetent appointees through the process!

Republicans move to change Senate rules to speed confirmation of some nominees – Roll Call
Republicans move to change Senate rules to speed confirmation of some nominees – Congress

https://rollcall.com/2025/09/09/republicans-move-to-change-senate-rules-to-speed-confirmation-of-some-nominees

Washington Post: Senators ramp up pressure on Trump to abandon threats to send troops into U.S. cities

Posted on by
Reply

A group of Democratic senators is filing a friend of the court brief Tuesday in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lawsuit against President Donald Trump, stepping up pressure to keep Trump from overriding Democratic leaders and sending National Guard troops into Democrat-led cities like Chicago.

The 19 senators are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn a temporary order issued by a three-judge panel in June that found that Trump had the authority to send National Guard troops into Los Angeles this summer over Newsom’s objections. The Democratic senators argue that the issue has gained greater salience since then, as Trump began threatening to go into other states and cities against the wishes of their governors and mayors.

The senators are amplifying Newsom’s argument that the president’s use of the federal troops — at a moment when local law enforcement officials said they did not need federal support — violated the separation of powers doctrine by usurping Congress.

A federal district court judge initially sided with Newsom on June 12. Then, on June 19, the three-judge panel issued their temporary ruling siding with Trump. California is waiting on a final ruling from the appeals court.

Led by California Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, the group includes senators who represent Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and Portland — all cities that Trump has threatened to send in National Guard troops to “straighten it out” as he ramps up enforcement on crime and immigration. Schiff said in a statement that he hoped the Newsom case would become “the line drawn in the sand to prevent further misuse of our service members on the streets of American cities.”

The senators argue in their brief that by federalizing 4,000 California National Guard troops for domestic law enforcement over Newsom’s objections “without showing a genuine inability to enforce federal laws with the regular forces,” Trump violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering mandate and contravened the provisions of the Constitution assigning power over militias to Congress.

“Our concern that President Trump will continue to act in bad faith and abuse his power is borne out by his recent deployment of state militias to Washington, D.C. and his stated intent to deploy state militias elsewhere (like Chicago and Baltimore),” the senators wrote in the brief obtained by The Washington Post that will be filed in court Tuesday. They warned that courts are the last resort to “prevent the President from exceeding his constitutional powers” and that failing to do so could “usher in an era of unprecedented, dangerous executive power.”

In court filings this summer, the administration argued that Trump was compelled to send the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property because numerous “incidents of violence and disorder” posed unacceptable safety risks to personnel who were “supporting the faithful execution of federal immigration laws.” Department of Justice lawyers argued that Trump was within his rights to mobilize the National Guard and Marines “to protect federal agents and property from violent mobs that state and local authorities cannot or choose not to control.”

Before Trump sent National Guard troops into Los Angeles this summer in the midst of protests against his administration’s immigration raids, prior presidents had deployed Guard troops on American soil primarily to assist after natural disasters or to quell unrest.

The senators write that the last instance in which a president federalized the National Guard without consent from the state’s governor is when Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D) ordered the Alabama Highway Patrol to prevent the Rev. Martin Luther King, Rep. John Lewis and others from marching from Selma to Montgomery. President Lyndon B. Johnson intervened to protect the marchers.

Our arguments to the court make clear that Trump’s unprecedented militarization of Los Angeles should not be used as a playbook for terrorizing other cities across America,” Padilla said in a statement.

Last month, the president deployed National Guard troops and federal agents to D.C., arguing that they needed to tackle a “crime emergency” that local officials say does not exist. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, a Democrat, last week sued the Trump administration, seeking to force it to withdraw troops from the city.

In recent days, Trump has escalated his warnings to intervene in Chicago, posting on his social media site that the city is “about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” a reference to the Defense Department.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said on social media Monday that Trump’s threats were not “about fighting crime,” which would require “support and coordination” from the administration that he had not yet seen.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it had launched an operation to target immigrants in Chicago as the president vowed a broader crackdown on violent crime. A spokesperson for Pritzker said Monday that the governor’s office has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration or information about its plans.

Senators ramp up pressure on Trump to abandon threats to send troops into U.S. cities
Democratic senators are filing a brief in support of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s suit against the Trump administration.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/senators-ramp-up-pressure-on-trump-to-abandon-threats-to-send-troops-into-u-s-cities/ar-AA1Mb9dp

USA Today: ‘Unconscionably irreconcilable’. Sotomayor rips Supreme Court’s pro-Trump ICE ruling

Posted on by
Reply

The liberal justice called the order “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.”

  • Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion criticizing the majority’s decision and the Trump administration’s actions.
  • Sotomayor argued the ruling allows the government to seize people based on their appearance, language, and type of work.
  • The Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s order that had restricted ICE agents’ tactics in Los Angeles.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the Trump administration’s operation of the Los Angeles immigration raids, vowing not to stand idly by while the United States’ “constitutional freedoms are lost.”

On Sept. 8, the Supreme Court lifted a restraining order from a federal judge in LA who had restricted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from conducting stops without reasonable suspicion.

In July, US District Judge Maame Frimpong of the Central District of California said the government can’t rely solely on the person’s race, the language they speak, the work they perform, and whether they’re at a particular location, such as a pickup site for day laborers.

However, the Sept. 8 reversal by the Supreme Court’s mostly conservative majority gave the Trump administration another victory, as Sotomayor condemned the vote.

“That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Sotomayor wrote in a blistering, 21-page dissent on Sept. 8. “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job.”

Sotomayor called the order “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.”

The justice, an Obama appointee, ripped her high court conservative colleagues and the government over the ruling. Sotomayor declared that all Latinos, whether they are U.S. citizens or not, “who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.”oss California by broadening its scope from those only with criminal records to anyone in the United States without proper authorization. The crackdown ignited protests, prompting Trump to call in the National Guard and eventually the Marines to diffuse the outrage.

In June, the Trump administration ramped up immigration raids across California by broadening its scope from those only with criminal records to anyone in the United States without proper authorization. The crackdown ignited protests, prompting Trump to call in the National Guard and eventually the Marines to diffuse the outrage.

Sotomayor takes exception to Kavanaugh’s explanation

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who agreed with the Trump administration, said in his concurrence on Sept. 8 that the District Court overreached in limiting ICE’s authority to briefly stop people and ask them about their immigration status.

“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors,” Kavanaugh said.

He added, “Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of US immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations.”Despite fears, still looking for work: 

Sotomayor took exception to Kavanaugh’s comments. She said ICE agents are not simply just questioning people, they are seizing people by using firearms and physical violence.

Sotomayor added that the Fourth Amendment, which is meant to protect “every individual’s constitutional right,” from search and seizure, might be in jeopardy.

“The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be ‘free from arbitrary interference by law officers,'” Sotomayor said. “After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little.” 

‘Unconscionably irreconcilable’. Sotomayor rips Supreme Court’s pro-Trump ICE ruling

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/08/sotomayor-supreme-court-ruling-unconscionably-irreconcilable/86048909007

Salon: Sotomayor says SCOTUS ruling lets ICE “seize anyone who looks Latino”

Posted on by
Reply

Sotomayor worried that the ruling made Latinos living in Los Angeles “fair game” for ICE harassment

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the Supreme Court’s decision to allow wide-scale ICE raids and immigration stops in Los Angeles to continue on Monday. In a scathing dissent, she said the court was giving the Department of Homeland Security a green light to “seize anyone who looks Latino.”

The Monday ruling lifted an injunction on “roving” ICE actions in Southern California. That order from a lower court judge barred agents from carrying out detentions based on ethnicity, languages being spoken, employment or location.

While the Supreme Court’s ruling was unsigned, it appeared to be supported along partisan lines as all three liberals dissented. Writing for the liberal justices, Sotomayor called the order “unconscionable” and said it made Latinos throughout the region “fair game.”

“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job,” Sotomayor wrote.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, concurring with the unnamed majority, said ethnicity was a  “a ‘relevant factor’” for ICE agents to consider. He added that  “many” undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area “do not speak much English,” and work low-wage, manual labor jobs.

“Under this Court’s precedents, not mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote.

In her dissent, Sotomayor raised concerns about how the ruling could impact constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

“The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be free from arbitrary interference by law officers,” she wrote. “After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little.”

Sotomayor says SCOTUS ruling lets ICE “seize anyone who looks Latino” – Salon.com
Sotomayor worried that the ruling made Latinos living in Los Angeles “fair game” for ICE harassment.

https://www.salon.com/2025/09/08/sotomayor-says-scotus-ruling-lets-ice-seize-anyone-who-looks-latino

Reuters: US employment growth through March revised sharply lower

Posted on by
Reply
  • Revision estimate comes days after weak August nonfarm payrolls
  • Job growth was stalling before Trump’s tariffs, estimate shows
  • BLS revision estimate linked to birth-death model problems

The U.S. economy likely created 911,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months through March than previously estimated, the government said on Tuesday, suggesting that job growth was already stalling before President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs on imports.

The preliminary annual benchmark revision estimate to the closely watched payrolls data from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) followed on the heels of news last Friday that job growth almost stalled in August and the economy shed jobs in June for the first time in four and a half years.

The revision estimate is equivalent to 76,000 fewer jobs per month. It implied that nonfarm payroll gains averaged about 71,000 per month, instead of 147,000. Economists had expected the estimated revision to be between 400,000 and 1 million jobs.

“This means labor market momentum is being lost from an even weaker position than originally thought,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.

In addition to being hobbled by uncertainty stemming from trade policy, the labor market has also been pressured by the White House’s immigration crackdown, which has undercut labor supply. A shift by businesses to artificial intelligence tools and automation also is curbing demand for workers.

Once a year, the BLS compares its nonfarm payrolls data, based on monthly surveys of a sample of employers, with a much more complete database of unemployment insurance tax records, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data.

A final benchmark revision will be released in February along with the BLS’ employment report for January. Government statisticians will use the final benchmark count to revise payroll data for the months prior to and after March.

Economists have attributed the revisions to the “birth-and-death” model, a method the BLS uses to try to estimate how many jobs were gained or lost because of companies opening or closing in a given month. These companies are not initially available for sampling.

Though economists at Goldman Sachs agreed the labor market had softened materially, they cautioned the revision estimate was too excessive. They noted the QCEW was prone to upward revisions and might have difficulties accounting for unauthorized immigrants.

“Our own model of net job gains from firm births and deaths, one of the key points of uncertainty in monthly payrolls growth that the benchmarking process corrects for, suggests a downward revision of around 550,000, or 45,000 per month, via that channel,” they wrote in a note.

“While the BLS’ birth-death adjustment for nonfarm payrolls was probably too generous in second half of 2024, we estimate that the overstatement has since narrowed to around 10,000 jobs per month, cautioning against extrapolating too much from the benchmark revision.”

Last year, the preliminary estimate was for payrolls to be revised down by 818,000 jobs in the 12 months through March 2024. Payrolls were in the end only downgraded by 598,000.

‘ACCURATE, INDEPENDENT AND TRUSTED’

Leisure and hospitality employment was estimated to be revised down by 176,000 jobs over the 12 months through March. Trade, transportation, and utilities payrolls could be slashed by 226,000 positions, while professional and business services employment was projected to be reduced by 158,000 jobs.

Manufacturing employment could be lowered by 95,000 jobs. Government employment was estimated to be cut by 31,000 positions. Modest upgrades were estimated for only the transportation and warehousing, and utilities industries.

U.S. financial markets were little moved by the report.

Economists continued to expect the Federal Reserve would resume cutting interest rates next Wednesday, with a quarter-point reduction, after pausing its easing cycle in January because of uncertainty over the impact of tariffs.

With the consumer price data on Thursday expected to show inflation pressures building in August, the estimated revisions could fan fears of stagflation.

The monthly employment report is based on data derived from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, which surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies, representing about 631,000 individual worksites. The QCEW data is derived from reports by employers to the state unemployment insurance programs, and represents about 95% of total employment.

Sharp downgrades last month to May and June employment figures totaling 258,000 jobs angered Trump, who fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, accusing her, without evidence, of faking the employment data. Trump has nominated E.J. Antoni to replace McEntarfer.

Antoni, who has penned opinion pieces critical of the BLS and even suggested suspending the monthly employment report, is viewed as unqualified by economists across the political spectrum. The National Association for Business Economics on Monday urged “policymakers, business leaders, and the economics community to stand with BLS and ensure that America’s statistics remain accurate, independent, and trusted worldwide.”

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer blamed the estimated revision on what she said was a failure by leaders at the statistical agency “to improve their practices” during former President Joe Biden’s administration, “utilizing outdated methods that rendered a once-reliable system completely ineffective.”

But the BLS, like other statistical agencies, has suffered from years of inadequate funding under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“Any political retaliation due to today’s release will harm the ability for BLS to provide timely and unbiased statistics,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

US employment growth through March revised sharply lower

https://www.reuters.com/business/us-payrolls-benchmark-revision-estimate-suggests-labor-market-weaker-than-2025-09-09

Money Talks News: Manufacturing Collapse: Tariffs Hit Factories Harder Than Great Recession

Posted on by
Reply
Manufacturing Collapse: Tariffs Hit Factories Harder Than Great Recession
Federal court ruling tariffs illegal adds uncertainty as American factories struggle under protectionist trade policies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/manufacturing-collapse-tariffs-hit-factories-harder-than-great-recession/vi-AA1M7DP3

Daily Express: Folk singer exits show over JD Vance appearance and receives overwhelming support

Posted on by
Reply

Folk singer Dolly Mavies left a venue after being tipped off that JD Vance would be there during his time in the United Kingdom this summer with his family

Folk-rock performer Dolly Mavies departed a venue in Daylesford, England, after receiving word that JD Vance would be present during his visit to the United Kingdom this summer with his family.

She and her band made the decision to exit the venue upon learning that the vice president would be attending the show. Media outlets extensively covered Vance‘s alleged presence at the venue that day, though a source close to Vance told the BBC that he never intended to attend and was not there.

Mavies, whose real name is Molly Davies, explained that she and her band grew “suspicious” upon arriving at the intimate venue due to “a lot of security around,” which was unusual. She also noted the presence of numerous “police motorbikes and very big cars,” suggesting that a high-profile individual might be in attendance. It comes after Trump faced an awkward encounter with his showbiz arch-nemesis as their bitter feud continues.

In an Instagram video shared after her departure gained widespread attention, Mavies revealed that once she and her band learned of Vance’s expected attendance, “we chose to leave as it wasn’t something that we wanted to be a part of.”

Following her decision to exit the venue, Mavies experienced a surge in social media followers and received countless supportive messages. “Obviously, there’s an overwhelming sense of support in America,” she noted.

“I think for a lot of American people there’s a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of people are scared, and it was amazing to feel like they’d been heard,” she added. Mavies also said that she was accused of a PR stunt, something she denied, reports the Irish Star.

She said, “If we were that clever, we would have done something before now.”

Vance faced significant backlash and mockery during his time in the U.K. He and his family took a vacation in the Cotswolds. Most notably, a van was seen displaying a viral meme of Vance bald and with a swollen face.

Residents in the area also disliked the lockdown atmosphere created by the secret service as Vance toured the region. There were road closures, sniffer dogs, and ID checks.

Vance also encountered criticism on American soil. When he recently visited a train station in Washington D.C. to meet with members of the National Guard, Vance was overwhelmed by chants of “Free D.C.,” and one heckler yelled that Vance was a “couch f–ker,” a reference to a claim made in Vance’s memoir.

It comes after Joe Rogan doubled down on a Donald Trump assassination conspiracy theory.

Folk singer exits show in protest over JD Vance appearance
Folk singer Dolly Mavies left a venue after being tipped off that JD Vance would be there during his time in the United Kingdom this summer with his family

https://www.the-express.com/entertainment/celebrity-news/183010/dolly-mavies-jd-vance-protest

Raw Story: Bipartisan fury spreads after ‘evil’ Trump treats domestic violence as ‘no biggie’

Posted on by
Reply

President Donald Trump downplayed domestic violence in a Monday speech as part of his White House Religious Liberty Commission — and was hit by swift condemnation.

Not only were onlookers outraged by the president’s dismissal of spousal abuse, some also called out Trump’s own long history with women. The so-called “Access Hollywood” tape, for example, recorded Trump bragging that he can grab women’s genitals without consent.

Trump had been complaining that domestic crimes were being counted in Washington, DC — which, he said, was diminishing the success of him sending in troops to tackle crime.

“If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, this was a crime, see?” he added. “So now I can’t claim 100%.”

His comment was made on the same day that an appeals court ruled unanimously against Trump’s appeal of a defamation case in which he relentlessly attacked E. Jean Carroll publicly, claiming she was lying when she claimed he sexually assaulted her in a department store.

It also happens while Trump is being criticized for his administration working to conceal the files around the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself after being arrested for sex trafficking and child molestation.

“Just the president Benedict Donald co-signing that your husband beating you or forcing you to have sex against your will is ‘like no biggie,'” wrote actor Rachel True on X.

The Voter Protection Project account on X characterized it, “Donald Trump just said domestic violence shouldn’t be a crime.” The group noted it was “curious to see how MAGA will try to spin this.”

Politico columnist Jonathan Martin expected the upcoming spin would be, “Look, he was on the Old Testament section of the speech.”

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) posted a screen capture of a reporter in which biographer Harry Hurt III said that he acquired Ivana Trump’s divorce deposition in which she alleged that Trump raped her.”

Republican and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell called it, “Just a casual dismissal of domestic violence as a crime.”

Professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, Justin Wolfers, posted, “Let me say what the President won’t: Domestic violence is not okay. It’s immoral, illegal and abusive, and no real man is okay would do it, approve of it, or minimize it.”

“Utah is one of the worst states in the nation for women’s equality. Republicans here will defend against those claims forcefully, but they won’t back away from their support of a president that endorses domestic violence. Their claims are hollow,” wrote Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin.

Lawyer Mark Ramos called the comment, “Grossly irresponsible. And un-Christian. Yet *that’s who he is* – zero change from his entitled, amoral, “grab ’em” bully mindset. If you supported him before for whatever policy or party loyalty or false promises, it’s not too late to stop ignoring his vile idiocy. Your choice.”

“That ‘see’ at the end is as evil as the statement because it frames bs as empirical evidence. Smh,” said college faculty member Antoine Hardy.

Analyst Julie Roginsky wrote on X, “Of course the man whose wife accused him or rape and tearing out chunks of her hair would say this.”

Researcher Will Stancil called on officials to say something. “Every single Democrat should instantly condemn him for this and demand a retraction and apology. They should demand Republicans condemn it too, although they’ll be too cowardly to do it. Blow it up. He’s supporting domestic violence – it’s grotesque and nightmarish,” he wrote on X.

Bipartisan fury spreads after ‘evil’ Trump treats domestic violence as ‘no biggie’

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-domestic-violence-2673970568

Forbes: New $250 Visa Integrity Fee Will Cost US $11 Billion, Say Tourism Officials

Posted on by
Reply

U.S. tourism officials say Congress’s controversial $250 visa integrity fee will deter international visitors and cost the country nearly $11 billion in lost visitor spending and tax revenue over the next three years.

  • The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the new $250 visa integrity fee will bring in around $27 billion over a decade—or $2.7 billion per year—to U.S. government coffers and reduce the national debt.
  • But a U.S. tourism official told Forbes the fee will instead cost the U.S. economy $11 billion over three years, including $9.4 billion in lost visitor spending and $1.3 billion in lost tax revenue—or about $3.6 billion per year, according to an analysis by Tourism Economics.
  • In addition, the lost revenue will lead to losing 15,000 U.S. travel jobs, according to U.S. tourism industry estimates.

How Will The $250 Fee Impact Tourism To The U.s.?

The CBO based its estimate solely on the potential revenue generated by the fee itself, while the U.S. tourism industry looked at the macroeconomic impact of implementing the fee, hence the wildly different estimates. The CBO estimated that charging roughly 11 million annual visa applicants $250 apiece would rake in roughly $2.7 billion per year for the State Department. Tourism officials say Congress wrongly assumed the pricey fee would have little impact on the volume of visitation. Tourism Economics, a division of Oxford Economics, estimated that the $250-per-person fee is onerous enough to deter 5.4% of international visitors from coming to the U.S., which would translate to a drop of nearly 1 million fewer visits annually. Fewer visitors translate to less visitor spending, and in turn to lower tax revenue and job losses in the tourism industry, sending a negative ripple effect throughout the national economy. “By longstanding tradition, the Congressional Budget Office does not incorporate macroeconomic feedback effects into its traditional cost estimates,” a CBO spokesperson told Forbes. “We didn’t specifically do a dynamic analysis of this provision.” In other words, the CBO did not factor in the potential negative economic impact from lower visitor spending, tax revenue and subsequent job cuts—key metrics used by the U.S. tourism industry and the U.S. Commerce Department to evaluate the overall value of tourism to the U.S. economy. “I think in the minds of congressional leaders, foreign visitors don’t vote, so making them pay more to help fund the [Big Beautiful] Bill wouldn’t come at any political cost,” Erik Hansen, senior vice president of government relations at the U.S. Travel Association, told Forbes. “But the problem is it comes at a huge economic cost to American businesses.”

What Else Do U.s. Tourism Experts Say Congress Got Wrong?

“Congress made the mistake of assuming that this worldwide visa integrity fee would not have a big impact on visitors from countries like India or Brazil,” Hansen told Forbes. “This is the exact type of armchair public policymaking that is going to get us into a big mess.” India, in particular, is a “bright spot” for inbound international travel because visitation numbers have surpassed where they were in 2019, he said, while most other countries are lagging behind their pre-pandemic volume. In 2024, Indian tourists spent roughly $13.3 billion in the U.S., according to the National Travel and Tourism Office, part of the U.S. Commerce Department. “Applying a $250 fee to a country where travel is growing is mindboggling. It will absolutely deter travel—that’s what our research has found,” Hansen said.

What Do International Visitors Need To Know About The Visa Integrity Fee?

The fee is not actually as “refundable” as Congress has billed it to be. As written, the Big Beautiful Bill says the State Department “may reimburse” the fee after the visitor’s visa expires, provided that the visa holder has complied with all conditions of the visa. But most visitor visas are valid for 10 years, Hansen pointed out. “The idea that you’re going to give the government money and then wait around 10 years and remember to ask for it back, even if you followed the rules, is just absolutely crazy,” he said. Indeed, to arrive at its projection, the CBO reasoned in its estimate that “a large number of nonimmigrants would not be eligible to seek reimbursement until several years after paying the fee” so consequently only “a small number of people would seek reimbursement.” In other words, said Hansen, “there’s a very good understanding that the refund process itself is not going to be easy, and even if it is easy, that a lot of people aren’t going to seek that refund after a decade.” Another red flag: The $250 fee was inserted into the Big Beautiful Bill without a plan for processing refunds. In its analysis, the CBO wrote that “the Department of State would need several years to implement a process for providing reimbursements.”

Why Are So Many International Travelers Avoiding The U.s. This Year?

In June, a World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) analysis of the economic impact of tourism in 184 countries revealed the U.S. was the only country forecast to see international visitor spending decline in 2025, which by some estimates is as much as $29 billion. The root causes of this decline, multiple studies have found, are a combination of President Trump’s tariffs, travel bans, inflammatory rhetoric and harsher immigration policies, all which have created a chilling effect on visitors. “While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign,” Julia Simpson, president and CEO of WTTC, said in a statement. “Given we’re halfway through the year and we’ve seen these impacts, we don’t know when the stiffest headwind is, but I think it does stay sustained,” Aran Ryan, director of industry studies at Tourism Economics, told Forbes last month. “We’re generally assuming that this persists for a while and that some of it is going to persist throughout the end of the administration.” Simpson characterized the WTTC study as a “wake-up call for the U.S. government,” adding that “without urgent action to restore international traveler confidence, it could take several years for the U.S. just to return to pre-pandemic levels of international visitor spend.”

Tangent

Trump’s signature spending bill contains another blow to U.S. tourism. A Senate committee led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) slashed the budget of Brand USA, the country’s public-private destination marketing organization, from $100 million to $20 million. “This is another error that Congress has made,” Hansen said, noting that the Trump administration recommended full funding for the organization in its fiscal year 2026 budget. “We have a big misperception problem among international visitors right now, but Congress cut funding for the one organization that’s in charge of setting perceptions and sending a welcoming message about travel to the United States.”

Controversial $250 Visa Integrity Fee Will Cost US $11 Billion As It Deters Tourists, Analysts Say
The U.S. is facing a steep decline in international travelers—and this fee will only make it worse, say tourism officials.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/08/15/visa-integrity-fee-cost-us-11-billion