The Brief

Two months ago, Democrats in Congress said they would not give immigration enforcement agencies another cent without reforms to limit the tactics of their officers.

But 59 days into a record-long Department of Homeland Security shutdown, that strategy has resulted in none of the policy changes they have demanded, while President Trump's immigration crackdown is still operating at full speed.

That is thanks to congressional Republicans, who gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement a $75 billion windfall last year with few strings attached — money that has helped insulate ICE from congressional pressure and oversight.

And as Congress returns from a two-week recess, top Republicans are making plans to skirt Democrats again to ensure ICE and Customs and Border Protection have funding through the end of Trump's term.

"A massive shoveling of cash"

With the South Portico adorned in red, white and blue bunting, the White House's Fourth of July celebration last summer doubled as a signing ceremony for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Republicans passed it by circumventing Democrats with a tool known as budget reconciliation. Trump called the law, which cut taxes, slashed Medicaid and eliminated clean energy tax credits, the "biggest bill of its type in history."

That big bill also included $75 billion in new funding for ICE, on top of the agency's annual funding, which is usually only about $10 billion. The infusion made ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency. Other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Customs and Border Protection, also received tens of billions of dollars in additional funding.

Democrats have used this party-line reconciliation maneuver too, including in 2021 to approve billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief money.

But Sam Bagenstos, who was general counsel at the White House Office of Management and Budget at the time under President Joe Biden, says this ICE funding is not a collection of targeted funds. Instead, it is more like a blank check.

"Here what we have is just a massive shoveling of cash to an agency with few if any strings," he says. "I can't think of an example that's anywhere close to that."

The expansive pot of money received renewed scrutiny roughly six months after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act when immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

Democrats pledged to fund ICE and Border Patrol only if the White House agreed to reforms, like requiring judicial warrants to enter homes and banning officers from wearing masks.

Article I of the Constitution says Congress holds the purse strings — a key check on the executive.

"But if turns out Congress had already taken away its ability to do that by passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which gave ICE enough money that they can say to Congress, 'Yeah, sorry, we don't need to come back to you for money, and there's nothing you can do to us,'" Bagenstos says.

"A tempering influence on the agency"

The fight over ICE tactics has been at a standstill for two months, leaving DHS without the regular annual funding that Congress is required to approve for all federal agencies.

The lack of funding would typically impact an entire agency. But this shutdown has been different. Unlike airport security employees who worked without pay for weeks, most ICE and Border Patrol operations continued largely unimpaired due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Trump also signed an executive order to pay other workers, circumventing Congress again.

That flood of money has also allowed ICE to hire thousands of agents and expand the number of detention center beds, even moving to purchase warehouses to house more detainees.

The influx of funding has been a boon for private prison companies, like CoreCivic and Geo Group, which spent millions of dollars on lobbying in 2025, including in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director and acting DHS general counsel during the Obama administration, says having to ask Congress for money every year makes agencies more responsive to concerns or requests for information from lawmakers.

"Having that appropriations mechanism where you have to get up there and defend what you did and how you did it every year — that is a tempering influence on the agency," he says. "You might get a call from a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. Those calls resulted in a lot more changes."

When Congress gives an agency money, lawmakers usually attach specific guidelines for how that money should be spent. Sandweg says the $75 billion has very few specific guardrails.

Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem used some of it to buy two luxury jets and has drawn criticism for awarding a multimillion-dollar ad contract to a firm with ties to her and top aides. ICE has also drawn questions from lawmakers for relying more on limited or no-bid contracts as the agency races to scale up capacity.

"When you have tens and tens of billions of dollars that can be easily spent with very limited oversight and no fear that you're going to have problems in the next fiscal year with Congress, you have created a real vulnerability to fraud or misconduct," Sandweg says.

The new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has moved to roll back some of Noem's spending policies. Democrats say the shutdown fight helped prompt the changes, despite no agreement between Congress and the White House on the list of legislative demands that Democrats are pressing for.

"DHS is still subject to congressional oversight," a DHS spokesperson wrote in a statement. "The 'misconduct' that needs to be corrected is the Democrats' longest government shutdown in U.S. history."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is depicted on a television next to him as he prepares to do a television interview on April 2 after the Senate passed a Department of Homeland Security funding bill by unanimous consent.

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Republicans say Democrats are "stretching it"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., says by withholding funding, Democrats are going beyond oversight, obstructing a basic responsibility of Congress because regular appropriations bills require 60 votes to overcome the Senate filibuster.

"Obviously the Democrats are stretching it by messing with the appropriations process in a way that was never intended," Thune told reporters.

Thune says that's why Republicans "prefunded" ICE with that $75 billion.

Senate Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement to fund DHS, except ICE and Border Patrol, but the House has yet to vote on the Senate-passed deal amid pushback from House Republicans.

Now top Republicans say they will use that same party-line tool again to fund ICE and Border Patrol for the rest of Trump's term, without having to acquiesce to Democrats' demands for reforms.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, says Democrats are blocking Trump's mandate from voters to execute his immigration agenda. He has proposed using reconciliation to fund ICE for a decade.

"I think we may very well be in a world where these Senate Democrats will never again vote to fund ICE," Cruz told Fox News.

Power of the purse in crisis?

Bagenstos, now a law and public policy professor at the University of Michigan, sees a different threat as the White House bypasses Congress on funding in all sorts of ways.

The administration has refused to spend money Congress has appropriated, like for foreign aid, and has spent money that Congress has not appropriated, like to pay DHS employees despite a shutdown.

And though lawmakers did sign off on giving ICE that $75 billion, Bagenstos says sidestepping the regular funding process is one more way Congress has surrendered power.

"We really are at a moment when the power of the purse is in a crisis," he says.

Bagenstos says the Constitution's framers gave Congress that appropriations power because they saw the legislative branch as closest to the people.

"They disagreed about almost everything in the construction of our government, but one thing that people across the board agreed on was that the legislature should have the power of the purse," he says.

If Congress checks out, Bagenstos says, that increases the risk of tyranny from the executive.

"If Congress doesn't stand up, I don't see why every executive in the future isn't going to follow some playbook like this," he says.
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The Los Angeles World Cup host committee has quietly posted its guidance on human rights after months of speculation over where the plan was and when it would be published.

Advocates had pushed the committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied with what they're seeing.

The human rights guidance is required by FIFA and outlined on the host committee's website. It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can call 211 to report a concern during the tournament.

"Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, said in a statement. “It is a list of laws and hotline numbers."

The human rights document also skirts fears around ICE and its potential presence at the tournament and surrounding celebrations. Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said earlier this year that ICE's investigatory branch will play a key role in security for the tournament.

But ICE and immigration enforcement aren't mentioned on the host committee's web page on human rights or in its outline of its approach to human rights. "Immigration status" only gets a mention in the list of existing anti-discrimination laws.

"It certainly could have been much stronger," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said of the plan. She added that her organization participated in a roundtable on the plan, and she was disappointed ICE and recent immigration sweeps weren't mentioned in the resulting document.

"In order for all of this to happen, immigrant workers are part of it," she said of the World Cup. "Your hotel workers, your service workers, stadium workers, drivers." 

LAist reached out to spokespeople for the host committee for comment via email, phone and text, but did not hear back in time for publication. FIFA's press team also did not respond to an email from LAist.

According to the host committee's website, the human rights plan is the result of coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles, the city of Inglewood, and 14 roundtable discussions held in the fall of 2025.

"As a non-profit organization, the Host Committee’s role is primarily and necessarily focused on aligning and collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations," the document sums up the committee's approach.

The plan also promises more actions, including "Know Your Rights" training for L.A. residents and visitors and "Know Your Responsibilities" training for businesses and vendors. The committee also says it will develop a "rapid response" strategy to respond to potential problems at the tournament.

Available details on those plans were scant. And with the tournament just 30 days away, labor unions and community groups are continuing to voice concerns about potential ICE presence at SoFi Stadium and other potential consequences of the tournament coming to town.

The mayor of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to a charge she acted as an agent for China, federal prosecutors announced Monday. She has resigned from her position with the city.

Eileen Wang, 58, faces one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.

What we know about the criminal case

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills worked at the direction of the Chinese government and with individuals based in the U.S. to promote pro-People’s Republic of China propaganda in the United States. Those actions occurred between 2020 and 2022, prosecutors said.

According to federal prosecutors, Wang and Sun operated a website — known as U.S. News Center — billed as a news source for the local Chinese American community in Los Angeles County. They posted content on the site, described as "pre-written articles," based on directives from Chinese government officials.

Sun, 65, pleaded guilty in October 2025 in federal court to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. He is serving a four-year federal prison sentence.

Prosecutors also said Wang communicated with John Chen, whom they described as “a high-level member of the [Chinese government] intelligence apparatus,” in November 2021, and asked him to post an article from her website.

In a group chat, Wang referenced the article and wrote: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Chen pleaded guilty in New York to acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and conspiracy to bribe a public official. In 2024, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.

What's next

Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, was expected to make her first appearance in U.S. District Court Monday afternoon.

Citing a plea agreement, prosecutors said she's expected to enter the guilty plea within the next few weeks.

Arcadia's mayor is selected from the elected council members. A post on the city's website announced that Wang had resigned her position as of Monday and that a new mayor would be picked from the remaining council members at the next meeting.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.

The case at issue

The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.

The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.

What is telemedicine abortion?

The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.

That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.

Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.

Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.

States' rights

Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."

There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.

They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."

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