Common Ground: Addressing U.S. Military Recruitment & Veteran Support Systems
Coming out of Memorial Day Weekend, Americans across the country are reminded of just how many men and women have valiantly sacrificed their lives for the nation. In the eyes of Congressman Jake Ellzey (R-TX) and Congressman Don Davis (D-NC), the two veterans who co-chair the Four Country Caucus, the least we can do is ensure their families, and the veterans who return from war are taken care of.
Today, Rep. Ellzey and Rep. Davis share how they've worked across the aisle on efforts to support veterans through meaningful legislation–efforts that have contributed to a record-low rate of veteran homelessness in the United States. They also discuss the encouraging increase being seen in military recruitment and how they work to put country over party on Capitol Hill.
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Washington Post
35 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Trump vs. Harvard has international athletes scrambling for answers
Not long after President Donald Trump's first attempt to bar Harvard from enrolling international students last month, the school's men's soccer team, along with athletic teams all over campus, received a note from the coaching staff. They were monitoring the situation, the coaches said. The school was monitoring it, too. Everyone, it seemed, was monitoring a situation that had gone haywire in mid-May, but that provided no immediate clarity on what it meant for athletes with student visas. Could they stay at Harvard, for their classes and for next season? Could the seniors graduate? How about going home to visit their families this summer? 'It's the type of thing that creates this general feeling of uncertainty and unease and tension around campus,' said Jan Riecke, who was a senior captain on last season's team and graduated last month. (Riecke lived in Switzerland and Germany before attending Harvard, but he was born in the United States to German parents and is a U.S. citizen). 'It's a tension among students, among professors, because it's not just the people who are directly affected, the international students and athletes, but also your teammates and coaches, right? You play and train next to them, so you obviously feel for the fact that they are worried. They are worried about their futures.' A day after the coaches sent that message, Harvard sued the Trump administration to maintain its ability to enroll international students. A judge twice ruled in Harvard's favor, most recently blocking the Department of Homeland Security's order while the legal process plays out. But on Wednesday evening, Trump doubled down, suspending entry into the United States for any new Harvard students or exchange visitors with F, M or J visas. The next steps came in a now-familiar rhythm: By Thursday, Harvard had amended its legal complaint. By Friday morning, a federal judge had ruled with Harvard again, blocking the president's latest order, which attempts to reject Harvard-sponsored visas. The back-and-forth continues. But despite any temporary relief, the political battle has clouded the present and short-term future for some of Harvard's athletes and teams. For the 2024-25 academic year, 139 athletes listed international hometowns on team rosters, accounting for 17 percent of all athletes on those squads, according to a Washington Post analysis. The analysis included only Harvard's NCAA championship sports, plus women's rugby, which is one of the NCAA's emerging sports meant to provide opportunities to women. Harvard has several other programs, such as squash and sailing, meaning the uncertainty reaches even further. Some athletes listing international hometowns could, like Riecke, be U.S. citizens and therefore not dependent on the status of student visas. Based on hometowns, in the past two semesters, Harvard athletes represented roughly three dozen countries, Canada and Britain by far the most common. Ten out of 30 men's soccer players last season had international hometowns listed. Other teams, including women's soccer and field hockey, had even more athletes from abroad. On seven Harvard teams in The Post's analysis, athletes with international hometowns accounted for more than 30 percent of the roster. Those teams would struggle to compete without them. An athletic department spokesman declined to make any officials available for an interview, pointing The Post to university statements calling Trump's attacks illegal and retaliatory. More than a half dozen coaches and dozens of current and recently graduated Harvard athletes did not respond or declined to comment, including several who cited fears of retaliation from the Trump administration. Across NCAA sports in 2023-24, roughly 7 percent of D-I athletes were not U.S. citizens, according to the NCAA's demographics data. And while international athletes still fill a small fraction of D-I rosters, their share has grown by more than 40 percent since 2011-12, the first academic year included in the NCAA's public data, which is self-reported by schools. In the eight-school Ivy League, the share of NCAA athletes who are not U.S. citizens has nearly doubled since 2012, jumping to 6 percent in 2024. But the proportion of international athletes in the conference slightly trails the overall Division I mark. (The NCAA does not publish demographic data aggregated by school, and Harvard declined to provide data on how many of its athletes are not U.S. citizens.) 'This is not exclusively a Harvard issue,' said Ksenia Maiorova, a leading sports immigration attorney. 'This is something that has the potential to have tentacles in other spaces. What we're seeing is that the administration feels comfortable weaponizing the student visa for its goals of political retribution against a particular institution.' As much as possible, Harvard treats its athletes like all other students on campus, meaning any pressing visa questions have been routed to the school's international office. 'We don't have an academic services office just for student-athletes, we don't have housing just for student-athletes, so we also don't have an international office just for student-athletes,' said one school official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss this issue. 'And that international office, as you can imagine, is very, very busy providing support to all students.' But it's not just Harvard's current international athletes who are affected by the confusion and escalating policies. Incoming freshmen from other countries are feeling uneasy. So, too, are international recruits who were considering Harvard and are now having second thoughts. Lars Blenckers is a co-founder of Plus31 Sports, a company that mostly guides international field hockey and soccer players through the recruiting process with U.S. colleges. While he's not working with any current Harvard athletes, he does have two field hockey players who are supposed to enroll and begin training in August. One is from South Africa, the other from New Zealand. Naturally, on the same day Harvard coaches were scrambling to contact their international athletes, Blenckers started hearing from the players' parents. His phone has been buzzing almost nonstop since. The parents are asking whether their daughters can still attend Harvard, he said. If not, they're wondering whether they could defer a year and try again next summer, when the political turmoil will have hopefully died down. The athlete from South Africa has secured her student visa. The athlete from New Zealand, however, is still trying to schedule an appointment, another major complication. In late May, the U.S. State Department paused appointments for student or exchange visitor (F, M and J) visas. 'That system is just completely blocked now, so you cannot even go online and book any appointment,' Blenckers said of his athlete from New Zealand. 'So it's also very uncertain that even if Harvard is allowed to accept international students, can these athletes get their visas in time?' Pedro Mol is the CEO of Slamstox, a Netherlands-based company that also helps international athletes land opportunities with U.S. colleges. In the past few months, many families he works with have soured on not just Harvard but all Ivy League schools. Columbia remains in Trump's crosshairs. Maiorova, the sports immigration attorney, listed California-Berkeley, Michigan and the Ivies as the archetype of schools that could lose high-level athletes because of clashes with the president. Mol, a Netherlands native and a former Division I athlete, said he had a male tennis player flip his choice from Harvard to Georgia Tech this year. At Georgia Tech, the athlete would receive an athletic scholarship, which Ivy League schools don't offer. There would also be a better chance of earning name, image and likeness (NIL) money, because the Ivy League has been slow to warm to athletes earning money beyond small endorsement deals. 'And there just isn't the same political uncertainty there,' Mol said. 'The media here in Holland is pretty obsessed with Trump. Everything he does right now, it is blasted all over, so we obviously get a ton of questions. We do a monthly newsletter, and recently we did one on how Trump's orders affect our athletes. It was our most read ever by far.' After graduation in late May, Riecke, the former men's soccer captain, set out on a European trip with some of his teammates. As a last hurrah, they wanted to show each other the countries they grew up in. It has made Riecke think about the efforts to remove international students and athletes from Harvard, which would have made it impossible for him to make lifelong friends from other cultures. He hopes the worst developments have passed. 'It's brought people together as well,' Riecke said. 'You feel like you just pat someone on the shoulder once more than you would before, tell them: 'Hey, hopefully it's going to be all right. We're here for you.' I think that's the response we've gotten from a lot of the community.'
New York Times
36 minutes ago
- New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: U.S. Brings Abrego Garcia Back From El Salvador to Face Criminal Charges
A protest at the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., during a hearing on the wrongful imprisonment of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, earlier this year. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man at the center of a political and legal maelstrom after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was flown back to the United States on Friday to face charges of transporting undocumented migrants. The stunning move by the Trump administration, after months of fighting any effort to return him, could end the most high-profile court battle over President Trump's authority to rapidly seize and deport immigrants. The decision to pull Mr. Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador and instead put him on trial in an American courtroom could provide an offramp for the Trump administration, which had bitterly opposed court orders requiring the government to take steps to return him after his wrongful removal in March. The 10-page indictment — filed in Federal District Court in Nashville in May and unsealed Friday — might also be an effort to save face: Bringing Mr. Abrego Garcia back to face criminal charges may allow the White House to avoid a broader legal confrontation that was increasingly headed toward questions of whether Trump administration officials should be held in contempt of court. 'Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference in Washington. 'He was a smuggler of humans and children and women.' She added, 'This is what American justice looks like.' Two people familiar with the investigation said it made a significant leap forward when an imprisoned man recently came forward offering information about Mr. Abrego Garcia, but there was concern and disagreement among prosecutors about how to proceed. In recent weeks, a supervisor in the federal prosecutor's office in Nashville resigned over how the case was handled, these people said. Ms. Bondi went on to level accusations against Mr. Abrego Garcia that were not included in the indictment, claiming that co-conspirators told investigators he had helped smuggle 'minor children' and gang members during dozens of trips around the country. She linked him to more serious crimes, including murders and the abuse of women — even though he has only been charged in connection with smuggling. She also claimed, without providing evidence, that his seemingly law-abiding life in Maryland as a contractor, father and husband was a cover for a criminal activities spanning nine years. Ms. Bondi, who spearheaded the administration's public relations campaign to discredit him during the court battle, predicted he would be convicted and returned to El Salvador for imprisonment. The attorney general declined to say when the Tennessee investigation into Mr. Abrego Garcia was opened. His indictment was filed more than two weeks ago, on May 21, and unsealed Friday after he arrived in the United States. The deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said he believed the indictment was likely to render moot the lawsuit brought by Mr. Abrego Garcia's family to force his release from Salvadoran custody. Mr. Abrego Garcia made an initial appearance in federal court in Nashville later Friday, and the government moved to hold him in custody. He was detained and is expected to return to court on June 13. Asked whether he had spoken directly with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to take steps to free Mr. Abrego Garcia, Mr. Trump demurred. 'I don't want to say that. But he's returned,' he said, adding: 'And he should have never had to be returned. You take a look at what's happened with him; you take a look at what they found in the grand jury and everywhere else.' Mr. Bukele, who had previously said he would not release Mr. Abrego Garcia, said on social media on Friday, 'We work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn't refuse.' Mr. Abrego Garcia's lawyers said they welcomed their day in court and pointed out that the government's decision to return him to the United States undercut its longstanding efforts to keep him in El Salvador. 'Today's action proves what we've known all along — that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,' said Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Mr. Abrego Garcia. 'It's now up to our judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the Constitution guarantees to all persons.' Ama Frimpong, the legal director for CASA, an immigrant rights group based in Maryland, described the mixed feelings of Mr. Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura. She 'is of course very happy that her husband is back on U.S. soil, at least as far as we know,' Ms. Frimpong said, 'but of course, under very egregious and horrendous circumstances.' Even though the Trump administration has repeatedly accused Mr. Abrego Garcia of belonging to MS-13 — which has been designated as a terrorist organization — a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in April that the defendant had been deprived of his rights by being wrongly deported. 'The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13,' the panel wrote. 'Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.' Since the start of the case, administration officials have sought to depict Mr. Abrego Garcia, a metal worker who has lived illegally in the United States without criminal charges for years, as a member of MS-13. The charges filed against him on Friday accused him of belonging to the gang and taking part in a conspiracy to 'transport thousands of undocumented aliens' across the United States. In court papers seeking his pretrial detention, prosecutors said Mr. Abrego Garcia had been part of a trafficking conspiracy and had played 'a significant role' in smuggling immigrants, including unaccompanied minors. If convicted, Mr. Abrego Garcia could face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each person he transported, the papers said, a penalty that would go 'well beyond the remainder of the defendant's life.' Mr. Abrego Garcia had been in Salvadoran custody since March 15, when he was flown, along with scores of other migrants, into the hands of jailers at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center, a notorious prison known as CECOT. He was later moved to another facility in El Salvador. For nearly three months, his lawyers have been trying every legal strategy to enforce court orders demanding that the Trump administration 'facilitate' his release from El Salvador. From the beginning of the case, officials have acknowledged that Mr. Abrego Garcia was wrongfully expelled to El Salvador in violation of a previous court order that expressly barred him being sent to the country. But the Justice Department, acting on behalf of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, has not given an inch beyond that admission, saying only that if Mr. Abrego Garcia presented himself at the U.S. border, officials would 'facilitate' his re-entry to the country. Department lawyers have also spent weeks stonewalling an effort by Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the case, to get answers to the question of what the White House has done, and planned to do, to seek Mr. Abrego Garcia's freedom. The administration's serial refusals to respond to inquiries about its own behavior in the case has so annoyed Judge Xinis that this week she allowed Mr. Abrego Garcia's lawyers to seek penalties against the government. According to the indictment, the case against Mr. Abrego Garcia dated to Nov. 30, 2022, when he was stopped for speeding by the Tennessee Highway Patrol on Interstate 40 East, in Putnam County. Officers determined that the Chevrolet Suburban he was driving had been altered with 'an aftermarket third row of seats designed to carry additional passengers,' the indictment said. It also noted that there were 'nine Hispanic males packed into the S.U.V.' Mr. Abrego Garcia told the officers that he and his passengers had been in St. Louis for the past two weeks doing construction work, according to the indictment. But a subsequent investigation, prosecutors said, revealed that Mr. Abrego Garcia's cellphone and license plate reader data showed that he had been in Texas that morning and nowhere near St. Louis for the past weeks. Moreover, the indictment said, none of the people in the vehicle 'had luggage or even tools consistent with construction work.' Prosecutors said that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not the first time that Mr. Abrego Garcia had engaged in alleged immigrant smuggling, which they said was his 'primary source of income.' They added that he had transported about '50 undocumented aliens' a month across the country for several years. Jazmine Ulloa and Annie Correal contributed reporting.
CNN
42 minutes ago
- CNN
The Millers: Washington power couple straddles Trump-Musk feud
They're the Washington couple at the center of power in the Trump administration. They're also straddling opposing sides of an explosive breakup between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. CNN reported last week that Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff, would be departing her senior role at the White House as a top spokesperson and adviser for Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. She was on her way to work for Musk as he went back to running his companies, helping the tech titan manage and arrange interviews unrelated to his time in government. But days later, amid the smoldering ruin of Musk and Trump's epic meltdown on Thursday over social media, that job suddenly took on a whole new layer. Among the attacks both men lobbed at each other was Musk endorsing the possibility of impeaching Trump and installing Vice President JD Vance in his place. Trump, in turn, raised the possibility of terminating federal contracts for Musk's companies. The episode has left the Millers on conflicting sides of the biggest breakup of Trump's second term, spawning gossip among White House aides and rounds of speculation about how the fallout could impact the political fortunes of one of the most powerful couples in Trump's Washington, where loyalty reigns. 'Everyone is talking about it,' a former Trump staffer told CNN. Katie Miller was in Texas last week for the series of interviews Musk held with space and technology journalists as SpaceX's Starship had its ninth test flight. It was there that Musk first delicately expressed he was 'disappointed' in the Republican's domestic policy bill in an interview with CBS News. Her X account is now a steady stream of laudatory posts about Musk and his companies, with a banner photo of a SpaceX rocket launching into space and a biography that says, 'wife of @stephenm.' Her only social media post on Friday was a reply with laughing emojis to an altered photo of her husband as a Home Depot employee attached to a post about immigration raids on the chain's stores. One former colleague told CNN that she will ultimately need to make a choice. 'She has a choice between Elon and Trump, but it can't be both,' the administration official said. Musk unfollowed Stephen Miller on X on Thursday, although both Millers continued following Musk on the platform into Friday. There are divided views on how the situation will impact Stephen Miller's ascendance. Among Trump's closest advisers, many believe he is surpassed in power only by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, fueling speculation among some over whether he could take over should Wiles decide to move on. 'This whole thing will definitely make that more complicated,' one senior White House official told CNN. 'Katie being paid by Elon is not good for Stephen.' Another senior White House official strongly pushed back on the idea that this episode with Musk would impact Miller in any way with the President. 'Next to Susie, Trump trusts and relies on Stephen the most,' the official said, adding that the President and top brass were understanding that his wife working for Musk had nothing to do with Stephen or the current state of events. Katie Miller declined to comment for this story. Deeply connected and influential in Republican circles and at the highest levels of government, Stephen Miller and Katie Miller (née Waldman) met during Trump's first term in 2018. He was a senior adviser and speechwriter at the White House; she was on the Department of Homeland Security's public affairs team and on her way to becoming then-Vice President Mike Pence's communications director. He developed a reputation as the architect of some of the administration's most hardline immigration policies, becoming an influential and trusted aide in the Trump orbit. She developed her own reputation as a staunch supporter of those policies, once reflecting on a trip to the US-Mexico border as the administration came under fire for its child separation policy. 'My family and colleagues told me that when I have kids I'll think about the separations differently. But I don't think so … DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself — to try to make me more compassionate — but it didn't work,' Miller told NBC News journalist Jacob Soboroff in an interview for his book, 'Separated.' The pair married at Trump's Washington, DC, hotel in February 2020. Trump attended the wedding. In the four years after Trump left office, both set their sights on a Trump return to the White House. Stephen Miller launched a conservative nonprofit group, America First Legal Foundation, that served in part as a prelude to the policy of Trump's second term. Katie Miller headed to the private sector, where she consulted a number of major companies, including Apple. They were also raising three young children. Stephen Miller returned to the White House in January with a vast mandate, deeply involved in many of the president's signature policy initiatives and further empowered from the first term. Katie Miller joined the administration as well, working on behalf of DOGE and Musk, who had become a new figure in the Trump orbit after being an active campaign surrogate and 2024 megadonor. Like Musk, Katie Miller was working at the White House as a 'Special Government Employee,' which limits the number of days one can work within the administration. As their professional lives intertwined, the couple also became personally close with Musk, socializing outside of work. In the heat of the Thursday afternoon social media showdown, Stephen Miller had been scheduled to appear on Larry Kudlow's show on Fox Business Network – an appearance that was canceled. 'We lost Mr. Miller to a meeting in the Oval Office. Perfectly understandable. When I was in government, it would happen all the time. We'd have to kill a TV show. You're at the president's beck and call,' Kudlow said during his eponymous broadcast. This is not the first time Trump has divided a marital relationship. During his first term, Trump lashed out at the husband of one of his top advisers, Kellyanne Conway. Her husband, George Conway, had been intensely critical of Trump on social media. 'He's a whack job. There's no question about it. But I really don't know him,' Trump said at the time of George Conway. 'I think he's doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife.' In 2023, the couple announced they were filing for divorce. George Conway, a prolific user of Musk's X platform and ardent anti-Trump figure, posted dozens of times about the Trump-Musk spat. 'Does anyone have any updates on Katie Miller?' he asked Thursday evening.
