Trump Moves to Make It a Whole Lot More Expensive to Become a Citizen

The Department of Homeland Security has proposed a massive increase in citizenship application fees, as the Trump administration continues to upend legal immigration.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services proposed a rule Monday that would raise the fee for a paper citizenship application by 75 percent from $760 to $1,330, and the fee for an online application by 80 percent from $710 to $1,280, according to Newsweek.

The proposed rule would also make it more expensive to seek a hearing challenging a denied naturalization. If adopted, the rule would raise the fee for an appeal from $830 to $1,475 by paper, and $780 to $1,425 online.

Under the proposed rule, the government would scrap fee waivers and a reduced fee option for individuals experiencing financial hardship. The changes would present a significant financial hurdle for lower-income immigrants, further transforming legal immigration into a privilege for the extremely wealthy and a moneymaking scheme for the federal government.

This proposed rule is yet another way the Trump administration is attempting to curb legal immigration. The government has stacked the deck by appointing immigration judges bent on denying asylum claims, curbed America’s refugee program, and imposed steep price increases on H-1B visas.

President Donald Trump has struck out nine times in court in his quest to obtain voter registration data from states, reports Democracy Docket.

On Thursday, a federal judge threw out the Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking voter data from Maryland.

“This Court joins every court to have addressed this issue in concluding that an [statewide voter registration list] is not a record or paper that a state must produce to the United States under the CRA,” District Judge Stephanie Gallagher wrote in the ruling.

The DOJ’s quest to weaponize voter registration data as part of its immigration crackdown has not been going too well. So far, it has not prevailed in a single case: The suits have been dismissed in California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arizona, Wisconsin, Maine, and now Maryland.

And these dismissals aren’t just coming from Democratic-appointed judges. Five of the nine judges were appointed or renominated by Trump, including Gallagher.

The DOJ could still see a victory: It has sued 31 states and Washington, D.C. Outside of lawsuits, the DOJ has sent letters to all states asking for their voter rolls. At least 16 Republican-led states have complied, according to Democracy Docket.

The administration’s quest for complete, uncensored voter data is chilling—especially because they won’t provide a legitimate reason for this federal overreach, although some reporting hints at their plans. Over the course of the Maryland lawsuit, DOJ officials refused to answer the judge’s questions about what the agency planned to do with the data.

The Trump administration is holding millions of dollars of Homeland Security funds hostage unless states agree to stop using electronic ballots and prove voters are citizens before they vote, CNN reports.

Trump is demanding that states carry out manual election audits at the administration’s direction, use their preferred system to verify citizenship, and promise to gradually end the use of electronic ballots—all things that could lead to actual voter fraud. States that rebuff Trump would lose 20 percent of their grants, which could be millions of dollars in security funds.

These grants help states prevent terrorist attacks, support infrastructure, and ready themselves for natural disasters. DHS has granted this funding to states for years, no questions asked.

But now, as the president approaches a potentially disastrous midterm, this funding is contingent on state governments completely changing their election apparatuses so that Trump can continue to delegitimize factual polling and push his baseless claims of voter fraud. This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has dangled funding above states’ heads to make them capitulate to its agenda, and it likely won’t be the last.

“I expect [the new requirements] will be blocked in the courts,” former Justice Department lawyer David Becker told CNN.

Former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking orders on political decisions from Chris Butler, the leader of a group many former members have called a cult, according to a new investigation from The Washington Post.

So far, Gabbard’s allies in the Trump administration have been largely silent about the report that the person they placed in charge of the CIA, FBI, and NSA may have been taking directives from a man many former followers view as a cult leader.

As Gabbard is no longer a part of the Trump administration, perhaps her former colleagues feel no pressure to weigh in. But conservative commentator Meghan McCain defended Gabbard on X Sunday afternoon.

“What absolute unpatriotic vile trash this attack on @TulsiGabbard is. They wont cover her releases on Fauci or bio labs—both things that threaten the safety and wellbeing of the American people, but spend time and space vomiting this washed up nonsense anti-Hindu bigoted crap,” McCain wrote, referring to Gabbard’s release of documents “exposing” Dr. Anthony Fauci for supposed actions taken during the Covid-19 pandemic on Friday, her last day on the job.

Reporter Jon Swaine gained access to a trove of emails that appeared to show memos from someone within the Science of Identity Foundation, or SIF, directing Gabbard during her time in Congress. When Swaine compared the directives to Tulsi’s voting record, legislative proposals, and media statements, he found “unmistakable parallels.”

Butler’s followers practice a form of Hinduism known as Hare Krishna, and his politics when he founded SIF did not belong squarely in one political camp: “He inveighed against Muslims, homosexuality, gun control and public schools, but also promoted environmentalism and anti-capitalism,” the Post reported.

After two months with no answers from Gabbard’s office, Swaine informed Gabbard that he would be proceeding with the story. Two days later, Fox News reported that Gabbard would be stepping down from her position as director of national intelligence.

On her last days in office, a spokesperson gave a statement: “The attacks on Director Gabbard’s faith and loyalty are not only false—they are a blatant example of anti-Hindu bigotry.”

Anyone caught tampering with Donald Trump’s Washington-area restoration projects could be on the hook for significant prison time.

The president warned against vandalizing the monuments and statues that his administration has been trying to clean ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. In a Truth Social post, Trump pledged that anyone caught will face up to 10 years in prison.

“Please remember that there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things—Which will be fully enforced!” Trump wrote Monday.

Federal law already stipulates that damage to federal property exceeding $1,000 is classified as a felony. As such, the penalties are steep, possibly including a significant fine, a prison sentence of up to 10 years, or both. Those charged with damaging federal property to the tune of less than $1,000 could face a misdemeanor and a one-year prison sentence.

At least five people have been arrested for allegedly vandalizing the pool as of Saturday night, a Trump administration official told CBS News. Five citations were also issued, bringing the grand total of post-renovation citations issued at the site to 14.

In the same message, Trump claimed that the lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had suffered a “300 foot long gash”—an inexplicable jump from the 250-foot-long damage he described Saturday.

He added that “chemicals have been illegally placed in the water” and complained about the “8647” etched into the National Mall. He further suggested that the damage was “probably inspired by Dirty Cop, James Comey,” who was indicted by a federal grand jury in April for sharing a photo of seashells to his Instagram account that similarly spelled out “8647,” a tagline that Trump and his allies have claimed insinuates a desire for Trump’s death.