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The Guardian
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump administration ordered to halt indiscriminate immigration stops in California over racial profiling concerns
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven California counties, including Los Angeles. Judge Maame E Frimpong on Friday blocked the administration from using what has been called unconstitutional tactics in raids after a lawsuit was filed by immigrant advocacy groups last week. The lawsuit in the US district court has accused the administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people in southern California during its ongoing immigration crackdown. The plaintiffs include three detained immigrants and two US citizens, one who was held despite showing agents his identification. The order also applies to Ventura county, where busloads of workers were detained on Thursday while the court hearing was under way after federal agents descended on a cannabis farm, leading to clashes with protesters and multiple injuries. Frimpong also issued a separate order barring the federal government from restricting attorney access at a Los Angeles immigration detention facility. The judge issued the emergency orders, which are a temporary measure while the lawsuit proceeds, the day after a hearing during which advocacy groups argued that the government was violating the fourth and fifth amendments of the constitution. She wrote in the order there was a 'mountain of evidence' presented in the case that the federal government was committing the violations they were being accused of. Representing the government, attorney Sean Skedzielewski said there was no evidence that federal immigration agents considered race in their arrests, and that they only considered appearance as part of the 'totality of the circumstances', including prior surveillance and interactions with people in the field. In some cases, they also operated off 'targeted, individualized packages', he said. Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an email that 'any claims that individuals have been 'targeted' by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE'. McLaughlin said 'enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence' before making arrests. Advocates accuse immigration officials of detaining someone based on their race, carrying out warrantless arrests and denying detainees access to legal counsel at a holding facility in downtown LA. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the recent wave of immigration enforcement has been driven by an 'arbitrary arrest quota' and based on 'broad stereotypes based on race or ethnicity'. ACLU attorney Mohammad Tajsar said Brian Gavidia, one of the US citizens who was detained, was 'physically assaulted … for no other reason than he was Latino and working at a tow yard in a predominantly Latin American neighborhood'. Friday's order will prevent the government from solely using apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a location such as a tow yard or car wash, or someone's occupation as the basis for reasonable suspicion to stop someone.
Forbes
09-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Trump Administration To Charge Interest On Student Loan In SAVE Plan
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 04: U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the ... More One, Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on the South Lawn of the White House on July 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. The bill slashes student loan programs and repeals several popular federal student loan repayment plans. (Photo by) The Trump administration is set to start charging interest on student loans that are currently in the SAVE plan forbearance, contradicting months of assurances made to borrowers. Interest accrual will begin in August, and is expected to impact eight million student loan borrowers. The abrupt policy shift, first reported today by Politico, comes as the federal student loan system faces unprecedented upheaval. The Department of Education faces massive operational challenges following layoffs and buyouts that reduced its workforce by nearly 50%, contributing to growing backlogs of applications for borrowers applying for income-driven repayment plans or requesting student loan forgiveness. Last week, President Trump signed legislation passed by Republican lawmakers in Congress that will repeal several popular affordable repayment plans and raise the monthly payments for millions of borrowers. And this summer, the department is expected to begin garnishing the wages for more than five million borrowers who are in default on their student loans. Advocacy groups slammed the Trump administration, arguing that charging SAVE plan borrowers interest will burden them with additional costs. 'Instead of fixing the broken student loan system, Secretary McMahon is choosing to drown millions of people in unnecessary interest charges and blaming unrelated court cases for her own mismanagement,' said Student Borrower Protection Center executive director Mike Pierce in a statement on Wednesday. 'Every day, we hear from borrowers waiting on hold with their servicer for hours, begging the government to let them out of this forbearance, and help them get back on track—instead, McMahon is choosing to jack up the cost of their student debt without giving them a way out. These are teachers, nurses, and retail workers who trusted the government's word, only to get sucker-punched by bills that will now cost them hundreds more every month. McMahon is turning a lifeline into a trap and fueling one of the biggest wealth grabs from working families in modern history. It's a betrayal.' Here's what student loan borrowers need to know. SAVE Plan Forbearance Had Paused Student Loan Payments And Interest More than eight million borrowers had enrolled in the SAVE plan by last year, or were automatically converted to SAVE from its predecessor plan, REPAYE. The SAVE plan is one of several student loan repayment plan options that allow borrowers make payments based on their income, with any remaining balance eligible for loan forgiveness after years in repayment (typically 20 or 25 years). However, a group of Republican-led states then filed a legal challenge against the Biden administration to block the program, arguing it was too generous and exceeded what Congress had authorized when it first passed a law allowing for the creation of income-driven repayment plans more than three decades earlier. Last summer, a federal appeals court issued an injunction blocking the SAVE plan. This forced millions of borrowers into an involuntary forbearance while the litigation continued. During the forbearance, borrowers have not been required to make payments, and interest has not been accruing on their balances. But the time spent in the forbearance has not counted toward student loan forgiveness – both on the 20- or 25-year IDR repayment terms, and also for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 'ED has placed borrowers currently enrolled in the SAVE Plan (previously known as the Revised Pay As You Earn, or REPAYE, Plan) into a general forbearance because their servicers are not currently able to bill them at the amount required by a recent court order,' says Department of Education guidance. 'Interest will not accrue under this forbearance, which will last until the legal situation changes or servicers are able to send bills to borrowers at the appropriate monthly amount. Furthermore, time spent in this general forbearance will not count for PSLF or IDR forgiveness.' The forbearance has continued for the last year. And despite misleading correspondence recently sent to borrowers by some student loan servicers contracted with the department, officials have confirmed that no interest should be accruing on loans that are in the SAVE plan forbearance. Student Loan Interest Expected To Resume In August But according to Politico, the Department of Education plans to resume charging student loan interest for borrowers who are in the SAVE plan forbearance. According to the reporting, the department is suggesting that charging interest is required under an updated, expanded injunction issued by the federal appeals court earlier this year. But nothing in that injunction expressly requires the department to resume charging interest on covered federal student loans. 'Despite representations by the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) to the contrary, no federal or state court—including 8th Circuit Court of Appeals—has issued an order instructing the Department to resume charging these borrowers interest or calling into question the Secretary's authority to waive interest accrual for borrowers whose payments have been suspended,' said the Student Borrower Protection Center in a memorandum released on Wednesday. Furthermore, the abrupt resumption of interest appears to contradict guidance and prior assurances the department has provided to student loan borrowers over the course of the last 12 months – particularly that interest won't accrue 'until the legal situation changes or servicers are able to send bills to borrowers at the appropriate monthly amount.' The legal situation has not changed, and student loan servicers are not able to bill borrowers under the SAVE plan given that the repayment formula is enjoined. The SBPC warned that resuming interest charges will cause substantial harm to student loan borrowers. 'The Student Borrower Protection Center estimates that a typical borrower affected by this Trump Administration policy change will incur more than $3,500 in unnecessary interest charges per year or roughly $300 per month,' said the group. What Student Loan Borrowers Can Do Student loan borrowers who are in the SAVE plan forbearance can apply to change to a different income-driven repayment plan. The Department of Education has resumed processing applications for the ICR, IBR, and PAYE plans. However, the department and its contracted loan servicers are contending with major application backlogs, exacerbated by the Trump administration's decision to shut down the entire IDR application system for several months earlier this year in response to the February court order in the SAVE plan litigation. As of last month, the department still had a backlog of 1.5 million applications, with many student loan borrowers having applied months earlier with no progress on their requests. The department also appears to be suffering from deepening operational problems that are impacting IDR plans as well as the related Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF, program. The Trump administration removed an IDR tracking feature earlier this year that allowed borrowers to monitor their student loan forgiveness progress under IDR plans, and appears to have halted IDR payment count updates as well as student loan forgiveness under the IBR plan, which is not required under any current court order. The administration also appears to have stopped updating PSLF payment counts for many borrowers, as well. The passage last week of President Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' adds additional complications to the student loan system. That legislation formally repeals the SAVE, PAYE, and ICR plans, which will force borrowers enrolled in those plans to eventually switch to either IBR (which could result in higher monthly payments), or the new Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, which could keep borrowers in debt for up to 30 years. Technically, borrowers appear to still be able to select PAYE and ICR on their IDR applications, but these borrowers will likely have to change their repayment plans again, possibly as soon as next year, as a result of the new legal changes impacting student loans.
Arab News
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Over 10,000 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails, excluding Gazans in military confinement
LONDON: More than 10,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, the highest prisoner count since the Second Intifada in 2000, Palestinian prisoners' advocacy groups reported on Tuesday. As of early July, some 10,800 prisoners are said to be held in Israeli detention centers and prisons, including 50 women — two of whom are from the Gaza Strip — and over 450 children. The figures do not include individuals detained in Israeli military camps such as Sde Teiman, where many people from Gaza are believed to be held and subjected to torture. A total of 3,629 Palestinians are currently detained under administrative detention, a practice that allows Israeli authorities to hold individuals in prison without trial for six months, which is subject to indefinite renewals. A further 2,454 detainees are designated as 'unlawful combatants,' including Palestinians and Arabs from Lebanon and Syria. Since the 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, over 800,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails, according to a UN report in 2023.
