The Brief

The cities of Albuquerque, N.M., Boston, Chicago and San Francisco are suing the Trump administration over changes it plans to make to the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF.

The lawsuit, which also includes the nation's two largest teachers unions and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, comes less than a week after the U.S. Department of Education published a rule change to PSLF.

Effective July 1, 2026, the department says the change will allow it to deny loan forgiveness to workers whose government or nonprofit employers engage in activities with a "substantial illegal purpose." The job of defining "substantial illegal purpose" will fall not to the courts but to the education secretary.

PSLF was created by Congress in 2007, and signed by then-President George W. Bush, to cancel the federal student loan debts of borrowers who spend a decade working in public service, including teaching, nursing and policing.

According to the lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the plaintiffs fear that a city or county government's resistance to the administration's immigration actions, for example, or anti-DEI policies, could lead the secretary to exclude that government's public workers from loan forgiveness. They worry that a local nurse or first responder could be denied loan forgiveness because their local leaders defied the Trump administration.

The complaint argues the rule is "an attempt to target organizations and jurisdictions whose missions and policies do not align with [the Trump administration's] political positions on immigration, race, gender, free speech, and public protest."

"Politically motivated retaliation, like what the administration has done here, should have no place in America," said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs.

The plaintiff group also includes the National Council of Nonprofits, which said in a statement upon the rule's release:

"Nonprofits operate food banks, serve veterans, assist domestic violence survivors, deliver meals to seniors, respond to disasters, and much more. Nonprofits must be able to identify and meet those needs without political interference, fear of retribution, or exclusion from a program designed to support their employees."

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent denounced the lawsuit.

"It is unconscionable that the plaintiffs are standing up for criminal activity," Kent said in a statement to NPR. "This is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking, and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm to children."

In response to plaintiffs' concerns that the administration could use PSLF as a weapon to punish political opponents, Kent insisted "the Department will enforce [the rule] neutrally, without consideration of the employer's mission, ideology, or the population they serve."

The complaint says PSLF has allowed local governments to retain employees, including lawyers and engineers, who could earn more in the private sector. Albuquerque's leaders say that losing access to PSLF "would likely create an untenable staffing crisis."

In a statement, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu added: "The City is joining with cities, unions, and nonprofits across the country to protect a program that helps Boston's workforce and millions of Americans in public service careers pay for college."

What activities does the administration consider to be illegal? 

One key question raised by this rule change, and the lawsuit, is: How will the Education Department define activities with "substantial illegal purpose"?

According to the rule itself, such activities could include:

• "aiding and abetting violations of Federal immigration laws"
• "supporting terrorism or engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing Federal Government policy"
• "engaging in the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children in violation of Federal or state law"
• "engaging in the trafficking of children to another State for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents in violation of Federal or State law"
• "engaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination"
• "and engaging in a pattern of violating State laws."

If the secretary determines that an employer has behaved with "substantial illegal purpose," according to the rule, the employer can either engage with the department and accept a corrective action plan or risk losing access to PSLF for its employees for 10 years.

In response to public comments, the Education Department has said, "[it] would have no basis to remove eligibility from nonprofits engaged in work related to immigrant communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, or racial justice if those organizations are following the law."

But the plaintiff cities, which sit on the U.S. Justice Department's "sanctuary jurisdictions" list, say the Trump administration has already accused them of impeding the enforcement of federal law, and that this rule "represents yet another attack on politically disfavored local governments and nonprofits that have local laws, policies, and missions that are anathemas to the Administration."

"The actions of these cities are legal," says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers, another organization representing the plaintiffs. What's more, she says, "whether or not these activities are legal, is not a [determination] that the secretary of education has either the right or the expertise to be making." 

The new rule is the culmination of a presidential action, issued in March, in which President Trump accused the Biden administration of abusing PSLF, and said the program "has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means."

What did Congress intend when it created PSLF? 

The plaintiffs argue Congress was clear about what should qualify as "public service" when it wrote the law, and that this new rule goes against lawmakers' intent.

"The Higher Education Act defines public service jobs as including government or a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization. It does not provide any discretion or wiggle room within that definition," Yu says. "Congress has said that this is who is entitled to public service loan forgiveness. The secretary doesn't have the authority to change that."

In response to public comments, the Education Department has disagreed, writing that "[it] rejects the suggestion that this rule exceeds its legal authority. The [Higher Education Act] grants the Secretary explicit power to regulate title IV programs. PSLF is a title IV program, and its proper administration requires clear, enforceable standards."

Another lawsuit was filed in tandem Monday, by a coalition of 21 state attorneys general, arguing on behalf of Democratic-leaning state governments that worry their public employees could likewise be denied loan forgiveness because of state leaders' decisions to support immigrants, promote DEI or provide gender affirming care.

The coalition of attorneys general warned in a press release that the rule would result in "widespread confusion, fear, and instability in the public workforce, forcing states to confront severe staffing shortages, higher turnover, and skyrocketing costs to maintain essential services."

According to federal data, more than 1.1 million public service workers have thus far had their federal student loan debts discharged under PSLF.

This story was updated to include comment from the U.S. Department of Education.
Copyright 2025 NPR

The Los Angeles region’s homelessness agency will miss a Tuesday deadline for submitting its federally required annual audit of the agency’s financial records, which could jeopardize its federal funding.

LAHSA executives blamed the delay on a “perfect storm” of leadership changes and competing priorities within LAHSA’s finance department, including an L.A. County review of LAHSA’s delayed payments to contractors.

“Our staff made a good-faith effort to meet the deadline,” interim CEO Gita O’Neill said at a LAHSA Commission meeting Tuesday. “However, over the past year, we've experienced several transitions. As a result, we could not get all the required materials to the auditors as quickly as needed.”

Each year, LAHSA, like all non-federal agencies and organizations that get substantial federal dollars, is required to hire an outside auditor to determine whether it’s properly tracking and reporting the taxpayer funds it manages.

LAHSA’s single audit report for last fiscal year was due March 31, nine months after fiscal year 2024-2025 ended. Earlier this month, LAHSA officials said they were on track to meet the March 31 deadline.

Justin Measley, lead auditor for the firm CliftonLarsonAllen, had warned that LAHSA was months behind schedule turning over records.

At a meeting Tuesday, Measley explained that because of LAHSA’s earlier delays, the firm would need at least an additional week to complete a quality-control review process.

“We’re moving at the fastest pace we possibly can,” Measley said.

On Tuesday, LAHSA officials said the single audit will be filed “at the earliest possible opportunity,” within the next few weeks.

Federal funds at risk

LAHSA manages hundreds of millions of federal dollars each year, through grants from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

O’Neill said the agency has been communicating with HUD officials regularly about the missed audit deadline and is “hoping for understanding.”

Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, said she’s also been talking with HUD.

“They seem amenable to our situation and to our stated timelines,” Lim said. “So, we are hopeful that this will be a good outcome, despite having missed the deadline.”

HUD did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment Tuesday.

What went wrong 

Measley said LAHSA’s financial statements should have been turned over around last December, but LAHSA only submitted them this month, after blowing through multiple extended deadlines.

Measley said he contacted LAHSA’s governing commission about the overdue documents March 3.

He said he also previewed his firm’s findings, noting one “significant deficiency” in its draft report, related to LAHSA’s timeliness in detecting accounting errors.

LAHSA could contest those findings, officials said. That would add additional back-and-forth between the homelessness agency and accounting firm before the audit report is ready to file.

Justin Szlasa, a LAHSA commissioner who chairs the audit subcommittee, told LAHSA’s CEO he’s concerned that there was no time provided for LAHSA’s governing body to review the audit report.

“Next year, we will absolutely do that,” O’Neill responded. “I think this year, we were under the gun, and so we felt it was the most important thing was to get it uploaded on time.”

O’Neill said the agency hired accounting firm KPMG to help modernize LAHSA’s financial systems, with a focus on its contractor payments.

“We have an outside, trusted voice to help us create a system that works going forward because the system we have is not working at all, in finance,” O’Neill said.

Updated March 31, 2026 at 20:44 PM ET

President Trump on Tuesday escalated his efforts to reshape American elections, signing an executive order that seeks to create lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state, and instructing the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to verified voters.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he believes the order is legally "foolproof." But election experts said the order was unconstitutional, and voting rights advocates and Democratic state officials quickly pledged to sue to block the order from going into effect.

A previous executive order on elections, signed about a year ago, has been blocked by federal judges who said the president lacked the constitutional authority to set voting policy.

The Constitution says the "Times, Places and Manner" of federal elections are determined by individual states, with Congress able to enact changes.

"This Executive Order is a disgusting overreach from the federal government and shows how little the Trump Administration understands about election administration," Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state of Arizona, said in a statement Tuesday. "We will not let this order stand without a fight and will meet the federal government in court," he added.

Arizona is among more than two dozen states Trump's Department of Justice has sued over access to sensitive voter data.

The Trump administration claims it needs the data to enforce states' voter list maintenance. Federal judges in three states have dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuits in those states.

In another case, a DOJ official admitted in court last week that the department plans to share that voter data with the Department of Homeland Security, to run it through the so-called SAVE system to search for noncitizens.

NPR has reported that some U.S. citizens have also been inaccurately flagged by SAVE.

How the executive order seeks to change voting

Trump has long railed — baselessly — about widespread illegal voting by noncitizens and fraud associated with mail ballots.

The new executive order — which was first reported by The Daily Caller — takes aim at both.

It instructs the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to "compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State."

The order then "requires the USPS to transmit ballots only to individuals enrolled on a State-specific Mail-in and Absentee Participation List, ensuring that only eligible absentee or mail-in voters receive absentee or mail-in ballots," according to a White House fact sheet.

Trump's executive order claims that "additional measures are necessary" to secure voting by mail, a form of voting he has used himself — including last week — but also falsely maligned for years. In the 2024 general election, nearly a third of all voters cast mail ballots.

The Postal Service should also review the design of mail ballot envelopes to protect "the integrity of Federal elections," the order says.

Collectively, the provisions would be a significant change to how mail ballot programs are currently administered in American elections, which are largely carried out by state and local officials.

"Our government's citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate. The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck," the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for expanded voting access and sued to block Trump's 2025 election executive order, said in a statement.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, wrote on his blog that the order is likely unconstitutional. And regardless, he added, "the timing here makes this virtually impossible to implement in time for November's elections. … It seems highly unlikely any of this could be implemented for 2026, even if it were not blocked by courts."

The order comes as Trump pressures Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul that would impose new voter identification and documentation requirements.

That bill is stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition and the legislative filibuster.

The Supreme Court is also expected to rule this year on whether Mississippi should be allowed to count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day.

The legal challenge, which could have sweeping implications for mail voting nationwide, was filed by the Republican National Committee and Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Federal immigration officials arrested more than 14,000 people in the greater Los Angeles area in 2025 — the majority of whom had no criminal record, according to an LAist analysis of new data from the Deportation Data Project.

The data project, an initiative between UCLA and UC Berkeley, publishes federal data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

In 2025, federal officials arrested 14,394 people, up from 4,681 the year prior. Forty-six percent of people arrested had criminal convictions, 15% had pending charges, and 39% had no criminal charges or convictions.

In a December news release, the Department of Homeland Security said it had arrested more than 10,000 people in the L.A. area since immigration raids began in June of last year, including "murderers, kidnappers, sexual predators and armed carjackers,” but did not publish details of the number of people who had criminal records.

The data from the Deportation Data Project shows that arrests in L.A. spiked in June, and about two-thirds of people arrested that month had no criminal convictions.

More than 313,000 people were arrested by ICE nationwide in 2025, according to an LAist analysis.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said the agency has not “verified the accuracy, methodology or analysis of the project and its results” and said “this only reveals how data is manipulated to peddle the false narrative that DHS is not targeting the worst of the worst.” The spokesperson said 61% of people ICE arrested across the country either had criminal convictions or pending charges.

The agency has regularly published press releases identifying people they have arrested and who they have called “the worst of the worst,” including from the raids in L.A. in June. But an LAist investigation and reporting from other outlets has found that some of the people on those lists already has been in custody and were serving lengthy sentences.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

The program is for businesses in Council District 1, which includes the neighborhoods of Koreatown, Pico Union, Westlake, MacArthur Park and Highland Park.

Individual brick-and-mortar businesses can qualify for grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, while street vendors can receive about $3,000, according to city officials. A total of $400,000 is available through the program, and applications are now open. 

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez announced the program’s goal, describing it as a way to support locally owned businesses navigating rising operating costs, shifting customer patterns, and the impacts of recent wide-scale events, like the ongoing immigration raids, along with wildfires, and broader economic uncertainty.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

Who is eligible?

The program is open to independently owned businesses and street vendors located within District 1.

To qualify, businesses must have a valid Los Angeles business license and have been operating in Council District 1 since December 2020, with some flexibility for street vendors. They also need to show they’ve been financially impacted by any largescale events, like the COVID pandemic, immigration enforcement, or the broader economy. Businesses that changed owners can also apply if they’re essentially running the same operation.

How can the money be used?

Grants can be used for daily operational expenses, including rent, payroll, utilities, overhead and other business costs. Roochnik said the funding could also help businesses cover missed rent payments.

Who is running the program?

The grants will be distributed in partnership with the PACE Business Development Center and New Economics for Women. The two organizations provide support to small and immigrant-owned businesses across Los Angeles.

How will recipients be selected?

Funding will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, with applications remaining open until funds run out, Roochnik said. 

What’s the goal?

Hernandez said the program is meant to help stabilize neighborhoods that have been affected by immigration enforcement and economic hardships.

“These small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods,” she said, adding the funding is meant to help them “stay open, keep workers employed, and continue serving our communities.”

Naomi Villagomez Roochnik, CD1 communications director, said the announcement was made during a press conference at Delicias Bakery and Some, a longtime Latina-owned business in Highland Park. The neighborhood has experienced significant rising rents due to gentrification and the location was meant to highlight the kinds of businesses the program is meant to support.

How to apply:

To apply, small businesses and vendors can complete the application at bit.ly/cd1smallbizsupport.

Is this a one-time program or part of a larger effort?

The grant is part of a pilot program, with the possibility of it expanding depending on demand and outcomes. The council office has launched similar aid efforts in the past, Roochnik said, such as food distribution and rental assistance. 

Businesses that may not qualify for this specific grant can be connected to other resources, according to Roochnik, including the city’s legacy business program, which is for businesses operating for at least 20 years. 

The post Small businesses, vendors struggling against ICE raids, economic uncertainty eligible for up to $10,000 in grants appeared first on LA Local.