The 13 measures, signed Saturday, take direct aim at scenarios that have alarmed state officials in recent months — from federal agents showing up at polling places to local law enforcement seizing ballots before an election is certified.

“Trump won’t stop until he can exert dictatorial control over your free vote and disenfranchise millions of people this November,” Newsom said in a statement announcing the signings. “California will stop him at every opportunity.”

The Trump administration has long maintained that its election policies are meant to root out fraud and keep noncitizens from casting ballots, even though voter fraud remains statistically rare. Opponents, however, say the practical effect of many of these federal actions is to make voting harder for people who are legally entitled to cast a ballot.

One of the new state laws makes it a felony for anyone — including law enforcement — to seize ballots, voting equipment or election records before results are certified. That legislation traces directly back to an incident in Riverside County this past March, when Sheriff Chad Bianco confiscated more than 600,000 ballots as part of what he called a “fact-finding mission.” Two local Democratic officials and the California attorney general challenged the seizure in court, and the case is now before the state Supreme Court.

Another new law criminalizes interference with the delivery or return of mail ballots, a response that comes on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to restrict mail voting through new U.S. Postal Service rules.

Newsom also signed legislation prohibiting police from making arrests within 200 feet of a polling place on Election Day, with exceptions for crimes against people or property or offenses tied to obstructing someone’s right to vote. The bill reflects growing concern among Democratic lawmakers that federal agents could be sent to polling sites to intimidate voters.

Not everyone welcomed the changes. Sheriff Bianco argued that one of the new laws could put officers at risk of felony charges even when they’re simply carrying out a judicial warrant. The First Amendment Coalition objected to a separate measure banning deceptive, digitally altered political ads, citing free speech concerns. The California State Sheriffs’ Association also opposed one of the bills, saying it hands too much authority to the state attorney general.

In other Sacramento news, Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to draft artificial intelligence safety guidelines by Nov. 16. Some of what’s being proposed — including requiring a “kill switch” that developers could use to shut down AI systems — mirrors provisions from a bill Newsom vetoed two years ago. The shift comes amid rising public anxiety about AI’s potential dangers. Candidates running for governor have also signaled they support tighter AI oversight, though few have offered specifics on what that would look like.

Elsewhere in California policy news, digital privacy advocates have renewed scrutiny of data brokers, the companies that quietly gather and sell enormous amounts of personal information — from income and address to speculative details like whether someone might need a mammogram. A joint investigation by CalMatters and Consumer Reports identified more than 100 companies purchasing Californians’ data, including major retailers and financial firms.

On the infrastructure front, open internet advocates are pressing Newsom to turn down a $1.4 billion federal broadband grant meant to expand internet access to more than 270,000 residents in underserved communities. The catch: the Trump administration is requiring California to stop enforcing its net neutrality protections in exchange for the funding, a trade-off state regulators are still weighing.

Meanwhile, a fire last week at the Moss Landing battery storage facility in Monterey County has reignited safety concerns about the type of large-scale battery installations California is counting on to meet its clean energy targets. The same facility experienced one of the largest battery storage fires on record in January 2025, and investigators still haven’t determined the cause — a delay that has frustrated local officials.

In another decision this week, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed individual state departments to craft their own telework policies. The veto keeps his current four-day in-office requirement in place, even as the state’s largest public employee union — which backed the bill — is polling members on a possible strike.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Signs New Voting Protections Amid Concerns Over Trump Interference appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

“Help Wanted/Now Leave” opened this week, documenting the 1954-55 federal deportation campaign that swept up an estimated 1 million people, most of them Latino residents of the Southwest. The exhibit’s title references the government’s own name for the operation at the time, which used a racial slur against Mexican immigrants. Museum organizers are pairing that history with video testimony from people detained and deported under President Donald Trump’s current immigration enforcement push — a campaign Trump has said would surpass the scale of the Eisenhower-era sweep.

The idea for the exhibit came from Pablo Espinoza, a member of the California Museum’s board of trustees, who first envisioned it years ago while touring the museum’s exhibit on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans with his son. A former television journalist and Capitol staffer who has spent his career documenting Latino experiences in California, Espinoza said he recognized himself in the history of the 1950s deportations.

“That could have happened to me. That could have happened to my son. We look the part,” he said.

It took years to bring the project to fruition. Now, Espinoza said, the exhibit’s message feels more urgent than he ever anticipated.

The Eisenhower administration’s deportation campaign followed closely on the heels of World War II labor shortages that had prompted the U.S. government to expand the Bracero program, which brought Mexican laborers into the country to fill agricultural and industrial jobs. Within a decade, however, political leaders — including then-California Gov. Goodwin Knight — began casting unauthorized immigrants as competitors for jobs held by American workers, a rationale echoed in Trump’s own campaign rhetoric before his 2024 election victory.

Agents in the 1950s moved quickly, herding people onto trucks and boats bound for Mexico; some deportees died of heat exposure during the journey. Today, immigrant advocates say detainees are often held in overcrowded facilities without adequate medical care. Then, as now, witnesses have described immigration sweeps that targeted people based on how they looked or sounded rather than any specific evidence of legal status. Last month, leaked text messages and audio recordings revealed present-day immigration agents in Los Angeles using slurs strikingly similar to the language embedded in the 1950s operation’s official name.

Among the personal stories featured in the exhibit is that of Victor Ochoa, a San Diego artist and longtime activist who was deported as a 7-year-old U.S. citizen in 1954. Ochoa recalled his mother urging the family to avoid speaking Spanish in public as deportation raids intensified. Federal agents eventually arrived at their East Los Angeles home and gave the family three days to leave the country voluntarily or be forcibly removed. Though Ochoa had been born in the United States, his parents were Mexican immigrants, and the family chose to leave together rather than risk separation.

“I remember them scaring the hell out of my mom, and she cried after they left,” Ochoa said.

That experience shaped the rest of his life. Ochoa later helped found San Diego’s Chicano Park and has spent decades as a muralist and advocate for immigrant communities. He said recent reports of agents detaining parents near San Diego schools have unsettled him deeply.

“It’s meaner now,” he said, comparing the current crackdown to what his family endured in the 1950s.

The exhibit also highlights a more recent case: Vilma Palacios, a 23-year-old nursing graduate who was detained by immigration agents in June 2025, just days before she was set to begin a new job at a New Orleans hospital. Palacios had come to the United States at age 6 and grew up largely in Orange County before finishing high school in Louisiana and earning her degree from Louisiana State University. After spending six months in detention, she agreed to be deported to Honduras.

“They were saying we’re coming for criminals and people with criminal backgrounds, not people who have dedicated their whole life to the U.S. and their career to serving the community. I never thought it would get to that point,” Palacios said.

Her story didn’t end there — she eventually found work through her nursing network at a hospital in British Columbia, where she now lives. Still, she views her removal as a broader loss.

“These are good people that are being sent back,” she said. “There are good people in the U.S. that just want to contribute and make it better, that are being deported.”

For Espinoza, who came to the United States from Ecuador on a student visa before building a career in television news and later at the Assembly Speaker’s Office, the project reflects a personal evolution. He once believed immigrants should simply wait their turn for citizenship, but said his views shifted after meeting people who crossed the border out of necessity, with no realistic legal pathway available to them.

“It isn’t a choice at all, and it highlights the unfairness of an immigration system that doesn’t provide a path to citizenship for folks that are vulnerable economically yet are providing an important service to this country,” he said.

Espinoza said he hopes visitors leave the exhibit the way he did years ago at the Japanese American internment display — moved enough to reflect and act. He often thinks of his son Adrian, who died in 2024 at age 25 and who joined him on that formative museum visit years earlier.

“In the end I’m hoping maybe people see this with their children and then think, ‘What else can I do?'” Espinoza said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Decades Apart, Californians Describe Being Caught in Immigration Raids appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The administration wants to steer more funding toward temporary shelters that require sobriety, while reducing support for permanent housing programs. That approach conflicts with California’s long-standing “housing first” model, which prioritizes getting people into stable housing without preconditions such as sobriety or participation in treatment.

A similar effort last year to redirect federal homelessness funding away from permanent housing was blocked by a federal judge. The administration is now trying again, and opponents have returned to court.

This week, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Santa Clara County and other plaintiffs filed a legal challenge in federal court in Rhode Island, contesting the administration’s latest funding guidelines.

Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti criticized the renewed effort, saying in a statement that the administration was attempting once more to dismantle a key homelessness prevention program after a court had already stopped its previous attempt. He said the action disregards people who depend on the funding to remain housed.

At stake is more than $4 billion in federal homelessness funding nationwide. The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates the proposed changes could cause California to lose nearly $238 million for permanent housing programs and could put close to 15,000 Californians at risk of returning to the streets.

The debate is especially significant in California, where cities and counties across Southern California and the Inland Empire continue to face high housing costs, visible encampments and growing pressure to expand shelter and housing options. Many local homelessness programs depend on a mix of federal, state and local dollars, and changes in federal priorities can affect what services agencies are able to provide.

Federal officials argue that the existing approach has not delivered results. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner said earlier this month that the “housing first” strategy failed by placing vulnerable people in housing without producing meaningful progress.

“This ideology promised to end homelessness,” Turner said in a statement. “Instead, billions of taxpayer dollars were spent while homelessness increased to record levels.”

Supporters of housing first policies argue that stable housing is the foundation for addressing mental illness, addiction, unemployment and other problems that can contribute to homelessness. Critics, including officials in the Trump administration, say federal money should place greater emphasis on sobriety and treatment requirements.

The court challenge will determine whether the administration can move forward with the new funding rules or whether California and other states will continue operating under the existing federal framework.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Trump Renews Push to Redirect Homelessness Funding, Raising Concerns for Local Programs appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

In a video statement, Newsom said he was “proud” to be counted among Trump’s political opponents and alleged that the U.S. Department of Justice is searching for wrongdoing rather than investigating an established crime. He said federal agents recently contacted family friends and former employees of him and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

Newsom tied the scrutiny to his possible interest in a future presidential campaign, saying the Trump administration is using federal law enforcement against perceived rivals.

According to the governor’s office, neither Newsom nor Siebel Newsom has received a subpoena. But the office said it believes federal agents have issued subpoenas seeking financial records from businesses connected to the Newsom family. Newsom accused investigators of misusing the grand jury process by seeking years of documents.

Newsom founded the hospitality company PlumpJack before entering statewide office and placed his business holdings in a blind trust when he became governor. Siebel Newsom runs two nonprofit organizations, the California Partners Project and the Representation Project.

A person in the U.S. Department of Justice familiar with the matter told CalMatters that at least two criminal investigations involving Newsom have been underway. One concerns Siebel Newsom’s taxes, while the other is connected to Dana Williamson, Newsom’s former chief of staff.

Williamson pleaded guilty in May in a corruption case. The governor has not been implicated in that scandal.

The governor’s remarks come as Newsom continues to position himself as one of Trump’s most forceful Democratic critics, a role that has raised his national profile beyond California. The dispute also places renewed attention on the governor’s family businesses and nonprofit work as federal investigators seek records tied to those entities.

Newsom’s office framed the investigation as part of a broader pattern of retaliation by Trump against political adversaries. The Justice Department has not publicly detailed the scope of the inquiries or announced charges against the governor or first partner.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Rebukes Trump as Investigations Into Trump Family Intensify appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

In a video statement, Newsom said federal agents have recently contacted family friends and former employees as part of what he characterized as an open-ended search for wrongdoing.

“In recent days, federal agents have knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees,” Newsom said. “Not because they found a crime, but because they simply are trying to find one.”

Newsom said he believes he has been placed on what he called Trump’s political “hit list,” alongside figures such as former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee.

A person in the Department of Justice familiar with the matter said at least two criminal investigations involving Newsom have been underway for about a year in the Eastern District of California. According to that person, the inquiries stemmed from whistleblowers and people in Sacramento and involve questions related to Siebel Newsom’s taxes, as well as a separate investigation connected to Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson.

Williamson pleaded guilty in May in a corruption case that has not implicated the governor. She had been indicted on wire fraud charges tied to allegations that money was routed from a dormant campaign account belonging to Xavier Becerra, the former Biden administration health secretary and a leading candidate to succeed Newsom as governor.

Newsom’s office pushed back sharply on the federal activity, saying prosecutors turned their attention to the governor and his family after failing to find evidence tying him to the Williamson case. The governor’s office said investigators have asked about private matters involving the Newsom family, including the couple’s marriage.

The governor alleged that federal agents are seeking records and misusing the grand jury process by combing through years of documents. Newsom’s office said neither he nor Siebel Newsom has received a subpoena, though the office said the governor “looks forward” to receiving any such request.

Officials in Newsom’s office also told reporters that the specificity of some investigators’ questions has led them to believe federal agents may have subpoenaed financial records for businesses tied to the Newsoms.

Before becoming governor, Newsom built the PlumpJack hospitality business, which he has placed in a blind trust. Siebel Newsom is a filmmaker and leads the California Partners Project and the Representation Project, nonprofit organizations focused on gender equity and representation.

Disclosure reports filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission show Newsom solicited at least $1.9 million in charitable donations, known as behested payments, in 2024 and 2025 for the California Partners Project. The donations included $1 million from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

Newsom’s office said federal agents have contacted more than a dozen people and organizations connected to the couple, including friends, former employees, business associates, donors and affiliated groups. The office did not identify those contacted.

The governor’s accusations were made in a strongly worded video but did not include direct evidence that Trump personally ordered or directed the federal inquiries. Newsom’s office maintains that the Justice Department is seeking a new allegation after the Williamson investigation, which began during the Biden administration, did not implicate the governor.

Matthew Rowan, an attorney for Williamson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The White House referred questions about Newsom’s remarks to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“You can subpoena my records. You can investigate me. You can harass me. Put my name on any and every enemies list that you have,” Newsom said. “But leave my wife and family out of your personal vendetta!”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Says DOJ Interviews With Friends Signal He’s on Trump’s ‘Hit List’ appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The reaction followed early results in California’s top-two primary system, where all candidates appear on the same ballot and the two highest vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party. Republican Steve Hilton, a British-born former Fox News commentator, initially led a large field of 61 candidates for governor.

In Los Angeles, Republican Spencer Pratt also drew attention when early results showed him in second place in the mayor’s race after a campaign that included a series of artificial intelligence-generated parody videos targeting Mayor Karen Bass.

But as county election offices continued to count ballots, the standings shifted. Pratt later fell to third place. By Monday, Hilton remained in second place in the governor’s race, behind Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra, though his margin over billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer had narrowed to about five percentage points. The final outcome remained uncertain.

The changing numbers prompted complaints from some conservative media figures, podcasters and social media users about the length of California’s ballot-counting process. Some went further, alleging fraud without presenting evidence.

President Donald Trump joined those accusations during an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” accusing California election officials of “cheating” because ballots were still being counted.

When interviewer Kristen Welker asked whether he had evidence, Trump responded, “All I have to do is look.”

Welker pressed him, noting that California’s vote-counting process routinely takes time. Trump rejected that explanation and called the elections “rigged,” also attacking NBC and the program. He eventually ended the interview, removed his microphone and left.

Other Republican officials amplified concerns about the count. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that “everybody knows instinctively something is wrong.” On Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli posted on X that federal prosecutors were working with the FBI on “multiple election fraud investigations,” but he did not provide details.

There has been no public evidence presented showing widespread fraud in California’s primary.

California’s vote count often stretches for days or weeks because of the state’s election rules, especially its heavy reliance on mail ballots. The process has grown more time-consuming as lawmakers expanded access to voting over several decades.

Those changes were largely championed by Democrats, who have argued that easier access to ballots increases participation. Critics have long contended that the system benefits Democratic candidates in close races, but a slow count itself is not evidence of illegal activity.

The modern shift began after Democrats suffered a series of legislative setbacks in the late 1970s. Following the 1980 census, Democratic leaders redrew legislative and congressional districts and made absentee voting by mail more widely available.

That expansion did not immediately deliver the advantage Democrats expected. In 1982, Republicans made effective use of absentee ballots, helping George Deukmejian narrowly defeat Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the governor’s race despite polls that had suggested Bradley was favored to win.

Over time, California continued to broaden voter access. The state adopted automatic voter registration through the Department of Motor Vehicles and allowed voters to register on Election Day. The 2016 Voter Choice Act further encouraged mail voting while reducing the number of traditional polling places in participating counties.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, California has mailed ballots automatically to all registered voters. That change dramatically increased the number of mail ballots that county election workers must verify and process.

Election experts Eric McGhee of the Public Policy Institute of California and Mindy Romero of USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy recently noted that the added volume has slowed the count. Each mail ballot requires signature verification to confirm that it was submitted by the proper voter, a security step intended to strengthen confidence in election results.

That safeguard, however, also contributes to the delay that critics have seized on to question the count.

The result is a recurring tension in California elections: rules designed to make voting more accessible and secure also make final results slower to arrive. As close races continue to develop after election night, the drawn-out process has increasingly become a target for political attacks and unsupported claims of fraud.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Trump Allies Amplify Unfounded Claims of California Voter Fraud appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The policy memo, issued shortly before Memorial Day, appeared to mark a major shift in how the federal government handles “adjustment of status,” the process that allows eligible immigrants in the U.S. to apply for lawful permanent residency without leaving the country. The directive suggested that many temporary visa holders and people with humanitarian permission to be in the U.S. would have to return to their home countries and wait there for green card approval, except in “extraordinary” circumstances.

That language alarmed immigrant families, attorneys and employers, because it departed from a practice that has been in place for decades. Days later, however, the administration began to soften its description of the policy. The Department of Homeland Security told The New York Times that the directive was not a blanket rule and that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers have long had discretion in deciding such cases.

Immigration attorneys said the mixed messaging has done little to ease concern.

“That is damage control,” said Patrick Kolasinski, an immigration attorney based in Modesto. He said the administration appeared to be responding both to public criticism and to the likelihood of lawsuits, adding that changing the policy in the manner outlined by the memo would be “completely illegal.”

A DHS spokesperson, speaking anonymously to The New York Times, said people who may face greater scrutiny include those who have overstayed visas and applicants from countries whose citizens are considered more likely to rely on public benefits. DHS did not answer CalMatters’ questions about the apparent shift in how the policy was being described.

Legal experts say the directive fits a broader pattern by the Trump administration of tightening rules even for immigrants attempting to follow legal channels. Employers, including many in the technology industry, have criticized the move, warning it could disrupt business operations and push skilled workers out of the country.

The policy is expected to face legal challenges. In the meantime, attorneys say many applicants are unsure whether they should attend scheduled interviews, whether pending applications are at risk, and whether leaving the country could separate them from their families for years.

The people most likely to be affected include relatives of U.S. citizens, laid-off technology workers, international students and mixed-status families. The issue is especially significant in California, where 112,100 people obtained permanent residency through adjustment of status in 2023 — more than in any other state and nearly one-fifth of all such cases nationwide.

Family-based immigration makes up the largest share of green card cases. DHS data show that about 64% of new permanent residents in 2023 received green cards through a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.

A central unanswered question is whether the Trump administration intends to apply the new interpretation to people whose applications are already pending. Lynn Damiano Pearson, director of legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, said immigration lawyers have already seen USCIS officers ask applicants why they are seeking permanent residency from inside the United States and whether anything prevents them from applying through a U.S. consulate abroad.

Those questions, she said, appear to come directly from the new memo and suggest the administration may be preparing to apply the policy to existing applicants.

DHS did not answer CalMatters’ question about whether pending cases would be affected. In a written statement, the department said the policy “will have no significant impact on high-skilled applicants and trained professionals who followed the law.” The spokesperson declined to be identified.

Adjustment of status was created by Congress in 1952 and has been used under Democratic and Republican administrations for more than seven decades. More than 500,000 people use the process each year. The Trump administration memo reframes the process as something that should be granted only in exceptional cases.

Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, called the memo “wrong,” “reprehensible” and “illegal,” and said he was confident it would end up in court.

Nina Sheridan, a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, said the state is watching closely.

“The Trump administration continues its campaign against legal immigration, putting up barriers and pushing out immigrants who are trying to follow the established process to obtain permanent residency,” Sheridan said. “We are monitoring the administration’s next steps with its latest attempt to ignore existing laws and policies, and we are evaluating our options.”

DHS told CalMatters the memo restates long-standing law and policy that it said were ignored by the Biden administration.

Attorneys say one of the greatest fears among applicants is that the policy could turn routine immigration appointments into removal risks. Many people seeking green cards have remained in the U.S. with government authorization while their cases moved through the system, sometimes waiting years because of backlogs. In some cases, their original visas expired while their adjustment applications were pending.

Lawyers worry the administration could use that against applicants, deny them at interviews and then move quickly to initiate deportation proceedings. Immigration attorneys have also pointed to recent cases in which people were detained during routine immigration appointments and held for months.

Damiano Pearson said it is too early to know how often that could happen under the new policy, but attorneys cannot rule out the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detaining people after interviews.

For many applicants, leaving the U.S. to complete the process at a consulate is not a simple matter. Consular processing can involve long waits, and State Department backlogs can stretch for months or years.

“This is not a matter of buying a plane ticket and waiting a little longer,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “For many people, consular processing is not realistic or safe, and for others it could mean months or years of separation from their U.S. citizen spouses, children, employers and communities.”

Visa processing has been suspended entirely in more than 70 countries. Immigrants who have overstayed visas could also face three- or 10-year bars from reentering the United States if they leave and try to apply from abroad.

Damiano Pearson said the memo does not make clear whether those consequences will be considered, adding that the uncertainty has caused fear among people who believed they were on a lawful path to permanent residency.

Kolasinski said some of his clients have green card interviews scheduled and are anxious about what could happen when they appear before immigration officers.

“You go in and you have no idea what type of officer you are going to encounter or what rules they believe they are operating under,” he said.

His advice to clients with upcoming interviews is direct: do not go alone.

“At this point, nobody should do anything immigration-related without a lawyer present,” Kolasinski said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Five Things to Know About the Trump Administration’s New Green Card Policy appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Issued shortly before Memorial Day, the policy memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appeared to sharply limit a long-used process known as adjustment of status, which allows eligible immigrants already living in the United States to apply for lawful permanent residency without leaving the country. The directive said such approvals should be granted only in “extraordinary” circumstances, raising fears that many applicants could be required to return to their home countries and wait for their cases to be processed through U.S. consulates abroad.

Days later, after widespread concern from immigration lawyers and affected communities, the Department of Homeland Security sought to play down the scope of the change. The department told The New York Times the policy was not a blanket rule and said USCIS officers have always had discretion in deciding adjustment applications.

But attorneys said the memo has already created uncertainty for people who believed they were following the rules.

“That’s a CYA,” said Patrick Kolasinski, a Modesto-based immigration attorney, arguing that the administration appeared to be responding to public backlash and trying to reduce the risk of litigation. He said changing the policy in this manner is “completely illegal.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not answer CalMatters’ questions about whether it had reversed course after the memo’s release. An unnamed department spokesperson told The New York Times that people who overstay visas and applicants from countries whose citizens are considered high users of public assistance could be among those most affected.

The directive could have major implications in California, including Southern California and the Inland Empire, where many families include U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, visa holders and immigrants with pending cases. In 2023, 112,100 Californians received green cards through adjustment of status, representing nearly one in five such approvals nationwide, according to federal data.

The groups potentially affected include relatives of U.S. citizens, mixed-status families, international students, laid-off tech workers and other temporary visa holders already living in the country. Family-based applicants make up the largest share of new green card recipients; in 2023, about 64% of green cards went to people qualifying through a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, according to DHS.

A key unanswered question is whether the new approach will be applied to people who already have applications pending. Lynn Damiano Pearson, director of legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, said some immigration attorneys have reported that USCIS officers recently asked applicants why they were seeking green cards from inside the United States and whether anything would prevent them from applying from their home countries instead.

“People are being questioned about consular processing in a way that seems to flow directly from this new memo,” Damiano Pearson told CalMatters, adding that advocates fear the administration may try to apply the policy retroactively.

DHS did not directly answer whether pending applications would be affected. In a written statement, the department said the policy “will have no noticeable impact on highly qualified applicants and skilled professionals who have followed the law.” The spokesperson declined to be identified.

Adjustment of status has existed since Congress created it in 1952, and it has been used by Democratic and Republican administrations for more than seven decades. More than 500,000 people use the process each year. The new memo characterizes that pathway as exceptional rather than routine.

Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said he expects the policy to be challenged in court.

“This memo is wrong. It’s reprehensible. It’s illegal,” Joseph said. “I’m 100% sure that it’s going to be litigated.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office also indicated it is watching the issue closely.

“The Trump administration continues to wage a campaign against legal immigration, putting up barriers and pushing out immigrants who are trying to follow the established process to obtain permanent residence,” said Nina Sheridan, a spokesperson for Bonta. “We’re monitoring where the administration goes next with its latest attempt to flout longstanding law and policy, and we are evaluating our options.”

DHS told CalMatters the memo “restates longstanding law and policy” that it said had been “disregarded by the Biden Administration.”

Immigration lawyers said one major concern is that some applicants allowed their original visas to expire while waiting for green card interviews, which can take years because of federal backlogs. In many cases, they were permitted to remain in the country while their applications were pending. Attorneys now worry that those same applicants could be denied and placed in removal proceedings.

Advocates also fear some people could be detained during or after routine immigration appointments. Last year, some immigrants were taken into custody at scheduled appointments and held for months. Damiano Pearson said it is too early to know how frequently that could happen under the new policy but said attorneys cannot rule out the possibility.

Forcing applicants to complete the process overseas could create additional hardships. Consular processing is often slow, and in some countries visa processing has been stopped entirely. The State Department has halted visa processing in more than 70 countries.

For people who have overstayed visas, leaving the United States can trigger automatic bars that prevent them from returning for three to 10 years. Attorneys said it remains unclear whether USCIS officers would consider those consequences when deciding whether applicants must leave the country.

“This is not about buying a plane ticket and waiting a little bit longer,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “For many people, consulate processing is not realistic or safe, and for others it can mean months or years of separation from U.S. citizen spouses, children, employers, and communities.”

The uncertainty has left attorneys scrambling to advise clients with upcoming interviews.

Kolasinski said some of his clients are frightened because they do not know how individual officers will interpret the memo.

“You walk in, and you have no idea what kind of officer you’re going to get and what they’re operating under,” he said.

His advice to applicants with scheduled immigration interviews is to bring legal representation.

“Nobody should be doing anything with immigration these days without a lawyer present,” Kolasinski said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post What to Know About the Trump Administration’s New Green Card Policy appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Those are some of the details in a new batch of files on UFOs that the Pentagon began releasing on Friday as President Donald Trump taps into the public’s long-held curiosities about “unidentified anomalous phenomena” in the broader universe. Though the Pentagon has been working on declassifying the documents for years, Trump put attention back on the topic months ago by teasing a major UFO document dump.

“Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have Fun and Enjoy!” Trump wrote Friday in a Truth Social post.

Trump’s Republican administration says the public can draw its own conclusions with the information in the files, which includes old State Department cables, FBI documents and transcripts from NASA of crewed flights into space. A new Pentagon website housing the documents on UAPs has a decidedly retro feel, with black-and-white military imagery of flying objects displayed prominently on the page, with statements displayed in typewriter-like font.

Experts urge caution around the release of the new files, warning that UAP videos are often misinterpreted and mischaracterized by those unfamiliar with military technology. A 2024 Pentagon report rebutted claims that the U.S. government has recovered alien technology or confirmed evidence of alien life.

Files describe numerous sightings of UAPs

The initial release is a trove of videos, other imagery and testimony that is sure to stir more speculation among those who believe we are not alone in the universe.

For instance, a State Department cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan in 1994 details how one Tajik pilot and three Americans saw a brightly lit UAP while flying a jet over Kazakhstan. The object, according to the cable, was “making 90 degree turns, doing corkscrews and maneuvering in circles at great rates of speed.”

That’s not the only instance of erratically moving objects cited in the document release. A military report from the Aegean Sea in 2023 cited a UAP flying just above the surface of the ocean and making “multiple 90-degree turns at an estimated 80 mph” (129 km/h).

One interview with a U.S. intelligence official details an incident last year in which the official, doing a search on a helicopter, encountered a “super-hot” orb hovering over the ground, traveling about 20 miles (32 kilometers) at a speedy clip, then spotted four or five more orbs that flared up and down.

In a 1969 debriefing of Apollo 11 crew members, the astronaut Aldrin recalled spotting several unusual sights, such as a “sizeable” object close to the moon and a “fairly bright light source” that the crew felt could be a laser.

One document details an FBI interview with someone identified as a drone pilot who, in September 2023, reported seeing a “linear object” with a light bright enough to “see bands within the light” in the sky.

“The object was visible for five to ten seconds and then the light went out and the object vanished,” according to the FBI interview.

Another file is a NASA photograph from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, showing three dots in a triangular formation. The Pentagon says in an accompanying caption that “there is no consensus about the nature of the anomaly” but that a new, preliminary analysis indicated that it could be a “physical object.”

The documents include more than 20 video files showing unidentified objects captured by military sensors in locations from Syria and Japan to North America. The objects range from fast-moving specks captured in the distance to a football-shaped object spotted over the East China Sea in 2022. The most recent video is from Jan. 1 of this year and appears to show two circular lights flying against an inky black backdrop in North America.

Several files include military videos from the past several years that showed small ambiguous dots moving above the landscapes of Iraq, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. The white objects sometimes streaked across the screen in less than a second, while others slowly glided through the air or were followed by the camera.

Other files include written reports from U.S. military service members who were surveilling locations in the Middle East. One report described an object that was “shaped as a bouncy ball” and traveling 483 mph (777 km/h) consistently for at least seven minutes over Syria in 2023.

The object was later determined to be benign.

Among the files are hundreds of pages detailing reported sightings dating to the 1940s. A 1948 report from U.S. airmen in the Netherlands raised concerns about recurring flying saucer sightings. Swedish counterparts saw them, too, and believed they did not come from “any presently known culture on earth,” the report said.

One military video that quickly caught attention on Friday appears to show an aircraft shaped like an eight-pointed star weaving through the air. The video, from 2013 in the Middle East, is probably nothing more than a hot jet engine producing a diffraction pattern in the camera, said Sean Kirkpatrick, a former director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which investigates UAP.

Kirkpatrick said there’s nothing unexpected in the release and warned that without analysis it will “only serve to fuel more speculation, conspiracy and arm-chair pseudoscience.”

Trump administration touts transp

arency on UFO file release

Trump has previously released records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. that revealed little beyond what was already known.

The Pentagon has been working on declassifying documents related to UFOs for years, and Congress created an office in 2022 to declassify material. Its 2024 debut report revealed hundreds of new UAP incidents but found no evidence that the U.S. government had ever confirmed a sighting of alien technology.

A small group of Republicans in Congress has pressed for further transparency, accusing the Pentagon of holding documents back. A March letter from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., demanded 46 UAP videos identified by whistleblowers. Luna said Friday those videos will be released later by the Pentagon.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., thanked Trump for “keeping his word” on transparency and disclosure.

“I would like to remind people that transparency won’t all happen at once, it will take some time,” Burchett said in a statement.

Others used Friday’s release to urge further transparency into what the government knows about UAPs. The Sol Foundation, a research group focused on UAPs, pushed for passage of legislation that would force a “thorough” review of classified UAP records “with the aim of providing Americans with the full truth about longstanding government knowledge and programs concerning technologies and vehicles not of human origin.”

“While today’s new step toward a full disclosure of government knowledge concerning UAP is welcome, many more need to be taken to bring an end to the decades of secrecy by which the American people were kept in the dark,” said Peter Skafish, the foundation’s executive director, and retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, a former acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

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The attacks cast more doubt on a tenuous month-old ceasefire that the United States has insisted is still in effect. Washington is awaiting an Iranian response to its latest proposal for a deal to end the war, reopen the strait and roll back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he hopes to receive “a serious offer” from Iran later Friday.

The U.S. military said Friday that its forces had disabled two Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade of Iran’s ports. Hours earlier, the military said it thwarted attacks on three Navy ships and struck Iranian military facilities in the strait.

Iran has mostly blocked the critical waterway for global energy since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, causing a global spike in fuel prices and rattling world markets. The U.S. has imposed its own blockade of Iran’s ports.

The UAE’s Defense Ministry meanwhile said three people were wounded after air defenses engaged two ballistic missiles and three drones launched by Iran. It was not clear if all were successfully intercepted.

US says it responded to an attack in the strait

The U.S. military posted video of the two Iranian tankers as their smokestacks were struck by an American fighter jet on Friday. Earlier in the week, an American military jet shot out the rudder of a tanker the U.S. military said was attempting to breach its blockade.

Late Thursday, the U.S. military said it thwarted Iranian attacks on three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz and struck Iranian military facilities in response. It said no American ships were hit.

“They threaten Americans, they are going to be blown up,” Rubio told reporters Friday.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called “hostile” U.S. military action, saying it violated the ceasefire. “Every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the U.S. opts for a reckless military adventure,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X.

A U.S. strike overnight killed at least one sailor and injured 10 others aboard a cargo vessel that caught fire, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s judiciary reported. It was not clear if the ship was one of the two tankers the U.S. acknowledged striking.

U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted the ceasefire is holding. He also has reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran doesn’t accept an agreement to reopen the strait and roll back its nuclear program.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country has been in contact with the U.S. and Iran “day and night” in an effort to extend the ceasefire and reach a peace deal.

Images show apparent oil slick off Iranian terminal

Satellite images reviewed by The Associated Press show what appears to be an oil slick in the Persian Gulf emanating from the western side of Kharg Island, Iran’s main crude export terminal.

Images taken Friday show the slick covering about 71 square kilometers (27 square miles) and appear to show oil still leaking from the terminal, said Ami Daniel, CEO of maritime intelligence firm Windward AI.

Daniel estimated that the equivalent of roughly 80,000 oil barrels has spilled from Kharg Island since the slick was first detected by satellite images Tuesday. It’s unknown whether the spill was caused by a malfunction, an airstrike or something else.

“This is the risk of fighting in an oil-rich area,” said Daniel, adding that it’s unlikely any cleanup efforts will be launched in Gulf waters that have become an active war zone.

He said the spill appears to be spreading southwest and within the next two weeks could potentially reach the shores of the UAE, Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

Nina Noelle, an international crisis operations expert with Greenpeace Germany, said Friday that preliminary assessment and recent images show the spill beginning to disperse and it appears unlikely that it will impact land. She said depending on wind, waves and current conditions, parts of the slick could still possibly affect some sensitive marine habitats.

“More likely, it will dissipate offshore under prevailing conditions,” Noelle said.

The Pentagon declined to comment on whether the U.S. military was tracking the spill or whether there had been recent strikes on the Iranian island. Based on the imagery taken earlier this week, the spill occurred before the most recent round of U.S. strikes.

Rubio says `unacceptable’ for an Iranian agency to control strait

Rubio said Friday that it’s “unacceptable” for Iran to have a government agency that vets and taxes ships seeking passage through the strait.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a shipping data company, reported Thursday that Iran has created such an agency, known as the Persian Gulf Strait Authority.

The Iranian effort to formalize control over the channel raised new concerns about international shipping, with hundreds of commercial vessels bottled up in the Persian Gulf and unable to reach the open sea.

“Is the world going to accept that Iran now controls an international waterway?” Rubio said. “What is the world prepared to do about it?”

Iran has effectively closed the strait, a vital waterway for the shipment of oil, gas, fertilizer and other petroleum products, while the U.S. is blockading Iranian ports.

A Chinese-crewed oil tanker was attacked near the strait. China has continued to import oil from Iran despite the effective closure of the waterway.

China’s Foreign Ministry expressed concern, saying the tanker was registered in the Marshall Islands with Chinese crew on board. There were no casualties reported.

An oil tanker that passed through the Strait of Hormuz in mid-April arrived off South Korea’s coast on Friday with 1 million barrels of crude. South Korea, which last year imported more than 60% of its crude through the strait, has capped prices of gasoline and other petroleum products.

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