Response Center

This Proclamation asserts that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has "invaded" the United States and invokes the 1798 "Alien Enemies Act" to deport them.

This Proclamation invokes a 1798 law about war powers and invasion, the Alien Enemies Act, against members of a Venezuelan gang that is not at war with or invading the United States, to claim vast executive power to deport people without due process. The Alien Enemies Act is a wartime authority that can only be invoked against "a foreign nation or government" and that does not allow summary deportations without due process. The Act is the only remaining element of the reviled Alien and Sedition Acts from the John Adams administration and has only been invoked three other times in American history, always during declared wars (the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II). The Trump Administration has applied the Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are currently being detained indefinitely without charge at a maximum-security prison infamous for human rights violations and torture, at U.S. taxpayer expense.

This memo cancels the government's contract to provide legal representation to represent unaccompanied migrant child in immigration court.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is required to provide legal representation to unaccompanied migrant children in immigration proceedings, and Congress regularly appropriates money to pay for those services. This ensures that young children can't be deported without at least being represented by a lawyer. The Trump Administration canceled its contract with non-profit legal service providers who actually provide those services, however, leaving unaccompanied migrant kids -- including babies and toddlers -- to navigate the immigration court system on their own.

This order instructs DOJ to compile a list of "sanctuary jurisdictions," strip them of funding, and take vague "measures" against them if they do not fall in line.

This Executive Order relies on the unsupported assertion that immigration constitutes an "invasion" to claim claim the authority for DOJ and DHS to identify and punish so-called "sanctuary" jurisdictions. There is no legal definition of a "sanctuary" or "welcoming" city or state; it usually refers to jurisdictions that decline to use their own local law enforcement resources to carry out federal immigration enforcement, which states and localities have the right to do. However, this EO defines "sanctuary" jurisdictions as those that "obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws," and incorrectly claims that this constitutes a "lawless insurrection" against the federal government. The EO instructs DOJ to maintain the list of sanctuary jurisdictions, and inform all jurisdictions on the list of their designations. It unlawfully instructs executive branch agencies to strip designated jurisdictions of federal funding, and potentially to target them for prosecution under federal harboring, obstruction, conspiracy, and RICO statutes. It also encourages other undefined "measures" and "action" by DOJ and DHS. Finally, DHS is instructed to develop rules to prevent ineligible noncitizens from receiving public benefits through private organizations like nonprofits, and DOJ is instructed to sue states that provide in-state tuition at state colleges and universities to state residents who lack U.S. citizenship.

A USDA official gave agency staff just one day to identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change from USDA-operated websites.

On January 30, USDA Director of Digital Communications Peter Rhee directed his staff to identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change by the end of the following day. The USDA subsequently removed numerous webpages containing vital public resources and information about climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation, climate change adaptation, investment in clean energy projects in rural America, and more. Organizations focused on farming and the environment sued to challenge the removal of these websites. On May 12, 2025, the government agreed to restore the data to government websites and to provide updates to the court on their progress and next steps.

This order reconstitutes the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to focus on maintaining "unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance."

The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) was first convened by President George W. Bush to provide advice to the President on science policy. Instead of prioritizing "evidence-based decisions guided by the best available science and data," like previous versions of the PCAST, President Trump's PCAST is directed to ensure that the United States maintains "unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance." While this might sound reasonable in the abstract, this order is an attempt to insert right-wing ideology into the PCAST. The order asserts, without basis, that the pursuit of scientific truth in America is now under threat from "ideological dogmas that prioritize group identity over individual merit, enforce conformity at the expense of innovative ideas, and inject politics into the heart of the scientific method." Trump's PCAST will be co-chaired by Elon Musk, creating an additional conflict of interest for Musk.

The memo gave most civil servants 9 days to resign from their jobs and supposedly be paid through September 2025, or face the possibility of losing their jobs without compensation.

On January 28, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo that gave most civil servants until February 6 to resign from their jobs and supposedly be paid through September 2025, or face the possibility of losing their jobs without compensation. The memo followed a return-to-office directive that had already put many federal workers in difficult positions and indicated that most of the federal government would be downsized through restructurings, realignments, reductions in force, furloughs, and reclassification to at-will employment status. In short, the offer to people who deliver vital programs and protections for the American people was stark: if you don't take this deal, you may lose your job with nothing. After issuing an initial temporary restraining order that paused the deadline for civil servants to respond, a district court judge allowed the program to proceed, and OPM, without notice or warning to any federal workers, terminated the program on February 12.