Cybersecurity agency's top recruits decimated by DOGE cuts
For Kelly Shaw, unemployment is unfamiliar territory. "I've never been in this situation before. I've never been fired," Shaw said, suddenly quiet, while seated at her kitchen table in Northern Virginia.
Nearly three years ago, the longtime senior intelligence analyst left the Navy, after being recruited by the nation's top cyber defense agency and rising up through the ranks. Eventually, Shaw helped establish a congressionally mandated program designed to continuously monitor and detect cyber breaches of the nation's power grid, pipelines and water system – installing sensors across critical infrastructure designed to detect insider threats and foreign adversaries like China, Russia and Iran.
"It was all about the information we can get within networks to find the bad guys – any indicators of compromise, evidence of the adversary, moving through a network and attempting to do bad things. That's what we did," Shaw said, pausing. "Well, that's what some will still do."
The former manager for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency's " CyberSentry" program, Shaw was also among the 130 probationary CISA workers mass fired in the "Valentine's Day Massacre" during the holiday weekend last month.
That weekend, the form letter termination notices arrived for over 4% of CISA's workforce, telling them they were "not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the Agency's current needs." Among them were the nation's threat hunters, incident response team members, disabled veterans and employees who'd already signed onto the federal government's deferred resignation program.
Others were former private sector workers who left lucrative jobs making seven-figure salaries to join the federal government and officials recruited into DHS' innovative hiring program — dubbed the " Cyber Talent Management System" — and analysts with top secret security clearances.
"I waited literally 13 months from the moment I got my offer letter to the moment I started this job," said former cybersecurity specialist Paula Davis, recounting her arduous security clearance process. Before her termination letter arrived in her email inbox, Davis said she was required to send agency leadership an email justifying her position, but she never received a response.
Davis spent her days analyzing code for state and local municipalities, identifying risks or abnormalities across the nation's aging critical infrastructure.
"We're being targeted daily, hourly and every single minute," Davis said, citing suspected cybercriminals' attempts to infiltrate water systems and the power grid. She called her role fighting those intrusions her "dream job."
"I didn't take an oath to the Constitution just to start getting a paycheck," Davis said, "Or else I would have just gone back into the private sector. I would have stayed at a big corporation."
Since last month, the rapid-fire firings have shaken lawmakers and high-ranking officials, leaving many current and former employees dumbfounded. CBS News has spoken with over a dozen current and former CISA employees, including several who were granted anonymity in interviews, due to fear of reprisal.
"These are the people that are the first line of defense in responding to incidents like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, and if we go even further back, SolarWinds," said one former CISA employee, referencing a string of foreign cyber espionage campaigns dating back to President Trump's first administration.
"These are elite hunters that look across critical infrastructure and government networks to figure out if these bad actors are active in these networks," the former employee continued. "The people who find how deeply they've penetrated and 'how do we get them out of there?'"
Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, warned at a hearing Wednesday that lawmakers are hearing that "significant cuts are coming for the remaining workforce" at CISA.
"That kind of talent, you just don't find it every day," Thompson told CBS News. "You have to convince many of those individuals to leave lucrative private sector employment and come and accept the public mission of securing our cyber security systems and protecting our country."
In a post on LinkedIn, last month, Former CISA Director Jen Easterly wrote that the agency had hired over 2,000 new employees during her more than three-year tenure.
Since 2021, CISA's "strategic recruitment" program – congressionally mandated and more than seven years in the making – has competed with the private sector to attract and retain world-class talent to execute a core mission of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CISA. Cyber Talent Management System or "CTMS" hires were by law employees with " measurable or observable" attributes including "knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors."
A former human resources employee for CISA who was among those fired told CBS News that before his termination, he was tasked with compiling a list of probationary employees, and among them were over 100 CTMS staff members.
"Everybody in CTMS is automatically in a three-year probation, so it's easier to get rid of them," the former HR employee told CBS News. "Close to 99% of our CTMS employees were probationary."
"You are extinguishing the best and brightest in one fell swoop," a current CISA employee said.
A CISA spokesperson told CBS News in a statement that the agency had 142 employees as part of its talent recruitment program, but did not disclose the number of employees fired.
Shaw was among the first recruits to the "CTMS" program, entering with 12 years of government service, two master degrees in electrical engineering and cybersecurity, plus at least nine different specialized cyber certifications.
"I had such confidence," Shaw said. "With all my prior experience. I just completed my doctorate in May of last year. So I thought I was well positioned to stay at CISA….But when I saw that executive order come through about probationary employees, I kind of panicked."
In a statement to CBS News, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the Trump administration is "making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer."
"To me, knowing how sleek and how well organized of an engine we had at CISA, that's a lie," Shaw said of the effort to slash federal spending by eliminating federal workers. "I don't know who else is going to be cut loose from our nation's cyber defense organizations. But I'm worried about that. I'm worried about that. This should be the last place that we should be cutting this expertise."
Along with firing scores of probationary workers, over the last month, CISA has put on leave at least a dozen employees who are tasked with stopping foreign interference in U.S. elections, part of a wider trend of dismantling U.S. efforts to fight foreign meddling in elections.
But concerns stemming from cybersecurity workforce cuts extend beyond the CISA workforce.
Former NSA cybersecurity director Rob Joyce raised "grave concerns" that aggressive threats to cuts of U.S. government probationary employees will have a "devastating impact on the cybersecurity and our national security."
"At my former agency, remarkable technical talent was recruited into developmental programs that provided intensive unique training and hands-on experience to cultivate vital skills," Joyce said. "Eliminating probationary employees will destroy a pipeline of top talent responsible for hunting and eradicating [Chinese] threats."
To help assist fired employers at her former agency, Easterly has created a matching website to connect former CISA alumni and prospective employers.
For his part, Thompson has started a hotline to encourage fired employees at the Department of Homeland Security and its components to share their stories.
After the Trump administration tapped the Office of Personnel Management to fire federal employees en masse, a federal judge temporarily blocked it, citing OPM's lack of authority to fire employees at other agencies. This week, OPM updated its guidance to reflect that firing decisions are made by individual departments and agencies, spurring the rehiring or reinstatement of batches of fired workers in the weeks since. CISA has yet to follow suit.
Asked if she'd return to the agency, Shaw paused. "I would have to go back," she finally said, citing CISA's essential mission and a regular paycheck. "I mean, they'd have to earn my trust back. But I don't know how you do that."
Colby Hochmuth contributed to this report.
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A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska -- Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying," Smith told The Associated Press. "He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.'
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Dropkick Murphys and Veterans Rally Against Trump for ‘Disrespecting the Vets'
'Music is sometimes a good way to kick the front door open,' says Ken Casey, the co-lead singer and bassist for the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys. On Friday, the 81st anniversary of D-Day, Casey and his band took to the stage on the National Mall, the headline act as several politicians and activists rallied thousands of veterans in a march on Washington D.C. Ostensibly, the rally — organized by an array of veterans groups and backed by labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO — was a non-partisan protest against proposed cuts to veterans benefits and to the federal workforce, including at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In reality, it was an expression of rage against President Donald Trump and his MAGA agenda. 'I think there's a lot of people in America that think this is a fight between the far right and the far left. And it's not,' Casey tells Rolling Stone. It is impossible to make substantial cuts to the government without disproportionately impacting veterans, who make up nearly 25 percent of the federal workforce, but only five percent of employed Americans as a whole. The VA alone is facing losses of nearly 83,000 jobs, as proposed by the department's secretary, Doug Collins — about 18 percent of its total workforce. 'When we join the military, we take an oath to this country. And they, in turn, promise certain benefits if we serve,' says Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, which represents about 750,000 government workers across the country. 'If you start attacking those workers that provide the services to the veteran then you are attacking, indirectly, the veteran.' Kelley says his members are keenly watching as lawsuits contesting job cuts make their way through the courts: 'They're saying that they want us to continue to stay in this fight. They are very relieved that the courts are seeing that these decisions are not rational, and that they are not in accordance with our Constitution.' 'We are winning some of these battles, but that's not where we want to be. We want to be winning the war,' he says. As the rally warmed up, Rolling Stone caught up with Casey. 'The facts are that the Trump presidency and all those involved are disrespecting the vets. And that's my opinion. And we're going to sing about it,' Casey tells Rolling Stone. His gentle voice purrs with an unmistakable Boston accent as he sits on a shady bench in the sweltering heat. 'We all know what's caused us to be here.' 'People are slowly waking up to it. I do think that the Trump plan of just throwing so much shit at the wall does work. It makes people just want to put their head in the sand,' he says. A young woman nearby, who this reporter later learns also hails from Boston but encountered the protest by accident, curiously eyes the 56-year-old punk rocker — with his old-school sailor tats, dapper black outfit, and neatly trimmed crewcut — and his interlocutor. She strains to listen in without being rude — it's not every day a founding member of one of your hometown's iconic bands plops down beside you to talk politics with a reporter, after all. 'I think that that's part of what keeps the moderates away, and part of it is that 'It's not affecting me personally right now,' and that's why that famous old statement from, I forget who said it: 'First they came for the trade unionists, and then they came for me,'' Casey says, summarizing a confessional-turned-poem by Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor imprisoned by the Nazis, of which there are many versions. It's not the first time on this day that Rolling Stone hears a direct reference to the Nazis, or the rise of totalitarian political ideologies in the 1920s and 30s — fascism on the right, and communism on the left. The organizers of the rally, a recently established non-profit called the Unite for Veterans Coalition, likens their movement to the 'Bonus Army' of 1932 — a group of World War I veterans who took to the streets amid the Great Depression to get cash payments that had been promised to them — and talk admiringly about Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, a legendary U.S. Marine who was instrumental in crushing a clumsy fascist coup attempt against President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Here, now, in Washington D.C. on the anniversary of Operation Overlord, many veterans consciously sought to evoke that past — summoning the days when America had offered the lives of its citizenry to defeat a dictator. 'Dad Fought Fascism in Europe,' one man's sign says. 'We Will Fight it Here.' A woman holds another: 'My Grandpa Fought Nazis.' Two men carry flags with three downward pointing arrows, one saying 'American Iron Front' on it. This reporter asks Kris, the Navy veteran holding it, what the flag represents. He says that he is part of a local anti-fascist chapter, formed during the first Trump administration. He is aware that the Iron Front was a political paramilitary that fought the Nazis, among other forms of totalitarianism: The three downward pointing arrows are generally considered to represent opposition to Nazism, Communism, and Monarchism. One of the lessons of that era is that political extremism, fueled by proliferating violence and a masculinity crisis among young men, can create the conditions for the failure of a democracy. It forms part of the rationale for why the veterans who organized the rally say they are focused on cultivating a non-partisan, moderate movement. The fight to claim the political allegiance of veterans is, after all, a proxy battle in the war for the future of the American Republic — and both sides get a vote when it comes to war. Veterans largely voted in favor of Trump during the 2024 election, perhaps 60 percent to 40 percent. While Trump and his supporters may be ceding some of that ground by cutting veterans benefits, others are waiting to build movements around the political legitimacy supposedly conferred by veteran status. Far-right extremists have been omnipresent throughout modern American history, and veterans are a natural target for cultivation by ideologues. Right-wing paramilitary groups like the Three Percenters are explicitly aimed at veterans and law enforcement, while groups like the Proud Boys or Patriot Front adopt the language, dress, and symbolism of the War on Terror-era military. What is common to all of them is the implied threat of violence against dissent, and a willingness to take to the streets. Political violence is nothing new, and a number of the veterans who spoke to Rolling Stone fear that civil unrest will be used as a pretext for a government crackdown on liberties, perhaps even used in an attempt to justify martial law. Other vets were at the rally to protest job cuts inflicted by Trump and Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency. A thirtysomething former Marine mortarman who asked to be identified only as Andrew says that he lost his job at the Veterans Administration due to the DOGE cuts. He traveled from Michigan to show up at the protest. 'I wasn't really political before,' Andrew says. 'Like, everyone knows when you're the one liberal in an infantry battalion, but back then I didn't give politics much thought.' 'Now, I'm fucking furious. I'll show up for anything,' he says. Damian Bonvouloir graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1978, and served in the Navy until 1986. He describes generations of family that had served in the military or in federal jobs, proudly counting them on his fingers as he shouts their relationship and role, while the Dropkick Murphys take to the stage. Bonvouloir carries a sign with a shamrock and the words: 'Who'll stand with us?' That is a reference to 'Who Will Stand with Us,' a new single which in the band's promotional material is described as 'an urgent call to action to stand up against division and inequality.' 'So here we are on D-Day today, and it's like everything that so many of our grandparents fought for — you're willing to just walk away from that, because you feel like the world's too 'woke?' What? How did you do the math there? Like, what do you care if someone else wants to be woke?' Casey says. 'Was it really worth it to surrender the democracy of the country, just so you could feel a little more like you had your guy win? It just doesn't add up.' Casey tries to put his money where his mouth is. Last month, he traveled to Ukraine as part of a mission to deliver desperately needed ambulances and medical aid. He sees the conflict there as part of the same fight that brought the veterans to the National Mall. 'People over there are defending democracy, and people over here are defending democracy,' he tells Rolling Stone. The Dropkick Murphys new album, For the People, comes out on July 4 on the band's own label. There's a lot of energy and anger, and much of it is clearly political. But Casey is hesitant to describe it as a protest album: 'Not every song is directly in relation to what's going on. But I think even when you're writing music that doesn't directly relate, the times shape that music.' 'There's a song on that album about the day my father died when I was a kid, that I never thought I'd write,' he says. 'And I'm just saying… maybe you get to the point where you don't take for granted that you'll be making music in the future, and maybe the times just make you feel an urgency for everything in your life.' At the rally, one of the biggest responses from the crowd was for a punk cover of the bluegrass song 'Dig a Hole in the Meadow,' an anti-fascist anthem from 1927, popularized by Woody Guthrie and others: 'Dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow. Dig a hole in the cold, cold ground. Dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow. We're gonna lay you fascists down.' Clearly a band whose eleventh album was titled This Machine Still Kills Fascists, is unapologetic about both its politics and its embrace of America's early anti-fascist traditions. 'I just feel when people say now, like, 'Shut up and sing!' — whatever. I feel OK. We've been going for 30 years with the same message,' Casey says. 'Listen, if you're a punk band and you can't write good angry music in these times… Then something ain't working, you know what I mean?' More from Rolling Stone 'We Are Taking Away Elon's Friends' Trump Finally Brings Back Illegally Deported Man - to Indict Him Trump Says He's 'Totally' Focused on Policy ... While Calling Reporters to Bash Musk Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
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Civics in the time of MAGA: Junior high kids get right what we adults have gotten wrong
So, I'm sitting here on a Thursday afternoon, watching a bunch of junior-high-school kids answering questions about American government and constitutional rights. And the sad irony is they know more about it than at least 90% of the politicians and elected officials I cover on a daily basis. It's called the National Civics Bee. It's like a spelling bee, but with civics. And Thursday was the state finals, held at the downtown Wichita headquarters of the Kansas Leadership Center. What made this a lot more fun than the usual 'bee' format was it was set up to allow for audience participation. Attendees (in a separate group) could play along with the competitors and test their own knowledge. I talked with Chris Green of the Leadership Center and we both agreed it would be fun to invite some of our elected officials next year to see see how they stack up against the sixth-, seventh- and eighth graders in the contest. I wonder how many would accept the challenge. The questions ranged from fairly easy, like . . . Q: A new education reform bill was introduced in Congress and successfully passed through both the House of Representatives and the Senate. What is the next step before the bill can become law? A: The president must sign the bill into law or take no action for 10 days, after which it will automatically become law. . . . to the detailed and difficult, for example. . . Q: In Federalist number 39, how does Madison distinguish between a federal and national government, and what does this distinction suggest about the nature of the Constitution as a product of the convention? A: Madison claims that the Constitution is both federal and national, with the House of Representatives representing the national and the Senate representing the federal, suggesting that the constitution will balance power between the state and national. (I got that one wrong. I picked the answer with the House representing the federal and Senate national). In addition to the multiple choice, the five finalists had to read from and answer judges' questions on an essay they wrote on a current issue, ranging from saving rural hospitals to reforming state policy on driver's license revocation. When all was said and done, Tanya Ramesh of Wichita won the competition, a $1,000 giant check, and a ticket to Washington for the national finals. Madeline Stewart of Overland Park took second and $500, while Zane Hoff of Salina got third and $250. I thought the Civics Bee was one of the coolest events I've been to in a while, so I hesitate to even bring this up, but some of the questions probably need updating in this era of MAGA. For instance: Q: How did Afroyim versus Rusk in 1967 affect the government's power regarding citizenship revocation? A: It limited the government's ability to to revoke citizenship. Afroyim v. Rusk was a landmark case that ruled: 'Congress has no power under the Constitution to divest a person of his United States citizenship absent his voluntary renunciation thereof. ' The court's revised that stance since, to allow citizenship to be revoked (called denaturalization) if it was granted on false pretenses that would have prevented it in the first place, for example, terrorists or Nazi war criminals living under false identities. Now, denaturalization has become a key part of President Donald Trump's ongoing efforts to deport as many non-white immigrants as possible, whom he accuses (echoing a former world leader named Adolf) of 'poisoning the blood of our country.' During his first term, Trump created 'Operation Second Look,' a program to comb immigrant citizens' paperwork for misstatements or errors that would allow them to be denaturalized. This term, his top immigration advisor, Stephen Miller, has vowed to 'turbocharge' Operation Second Look, which could also lead to denaturalization and deportation of American-born children of immigrants, under Trump's executive order that purports to end birthright citizenship. Another Civics Bee question that caught my attention was this one: Q: Which statement best reflects the application of federalism in the Clean Air Act, considering the following quotation, 'the Clean Air Act represents a partnership between federal and state governments to improve air quality and to protect public health.' A: The federal government sets national standards, while states can implement stricter regulations based on local needs. That's the way it's supposed to work. But it brought to mind a recent press release I got from Kansas 1st District Rep. Tracey Mann, taking a victory lap over Congress rolling back California anti-pollution regulations. At the time, I remember thinking, 'What business is this of Tracey Mann's?' given that he represents a district that sprawls from Colorado to one county away from Missouri, where there are about four times as many cows as people and the largest city, Lawrence, would be a minor suburb of Los Angeles. What he knows of the pollution challenges facing California I'm guessing would fit on a microscope slide, but he couldn't care less as long as he can own some libs and send out a press release titled: 'Rep. Mann Reverses Biden Green New Deal Policies.' When I was growing up, we didn't have civics bees. We barely had any civics education. Truth be told, most of what we ever knew about the workings of government came from 'Schoolhouse Rock,' three-minute educational cartoons sandwiched between Jonny Quest and Scooby-Doo on Saturday mornings. Cue the music: 'I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.' I can't help thinking if we'd had civics bees back then, we wouldn't be in this mess we're in today. So it lifts my heart to see these earnest young kids competing over who knows the most about the people and ideals that built America. It gives me great hope that their future will be better than the present that my generation has handed them.
