Leavitt: ‘Kilmar Ábrego García will never live in the US again’
The press briefing has just begun and press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened with attacks on Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador in an attempt to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.
Saying that Democrats refuse to “accept the will of the American people,” Leavitt repeated administration claims that García was a member of the MS-13 gang, and she also called him a terrorist.
“There is no Maryland father,” she said, referring to how García has been described in the media. She repeated the administration’s position that if he is brought back to the US, “he would be immediately deported again”.
“Nothing will change the fact that Ábrego García will never be a Maryland father. He will never live in the United States of America again.”
Key events
Today in summary
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Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador in an effort to get answers about the Trump administration’s illegal deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García. He said he hoped to meet Ábrego García in person and see his condition. He previously told the Guardian the case had tipped the US into a constitutional crisis.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back during a White House press briefing, saying that Democrats refuse to “accept the will of the American people,” and repeating administration claims that García was a member of the MS-13 gang. “Nothing will change the fact that Ábrego García will never be a Maryland father. He will never live in the United States of America again,” she said.
Here are other things we covered today:
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The “special guest” at today’s briefing is Patty Morin, the mother of a woman who was raped and murdered in 2023, who shared devastating details about her daughter’s murder – which has nothing to do with Kilmar Ábrego García.
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The IRS is making plans to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status after the agency has made a determination that an organization has violated the rules that govern tax exemptions for not-for-profit entities.
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Donald Trump has proposed giving money to immigrants in the country illegally who choose to leave voluntarily, and that his “self-deportation program” would include the prospect of those who are “good” re-entering the country later legally.
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The Department of Health and Human Services may be facing a severe $40bn budget cut – slashing roughly a third in discretionary spending according to an internal budget document.
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Senator Chris Van Hollen was told that the Trump administration was paying the El Salvadorian government to hold Ábrego García, citing that as the reason he has not been released.
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A new proposal from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries has offered a new interpretation of Endangered Species Act, which would strike habitat destruction from regulations.
The Trump Administration is hoping to narrow protections in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by redefining the word “harm”.
A new proposal from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries has offered a new interpretation of the 1973 law, which would strike habitat destruction from regulations.
“The existing regulatory definition of ‘harm,’ which includes habitat modification, runs contrary to the best meaning of the statutory term ‘take,” the proposal says.
“Take,” is a term used to denote any actions that include hunting, capturing, wounding, or killing a protected species. With this proposal, the administration is arguing habitat considerations shouldn’t be included.
But habitat loss is considered the strongest driver of species loss, pushing many species closer to extinction.
First reported on by Courthouse News Service, the proposal is scheduled to published in the Federal Register tomorrow.
Senator Chris Van Hollen was told that the Trump administration was paying the El Salvadorian government to hold Ábrego García, citing that as the reason he has not been released, the New York Times reported.
The White House maintains that it cannot force the El Salvadorian government and the country’s president, who met with Trump this week, said he would not return the man.
From the NYT:
The White House has said that it is paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to hold detainees sent by the US in its prison system for at least a year. President Bukele has not publicly cited the financial agreement as his reason for not returning Mr. Abrego Garcia.”
Meanwhile, the administration is now planning to appeal the order to return Ábrego García. Initially saying that the Maryland man, who had lived in the US legally for 25 years, was deported due to an administrative error, officials have recently doubled down and are now claiming his arrest and removal from the US was justified.
Kilmar Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura issued a statement responding to court filings posted by the Department of Homeland Security today, which showed she filed for a restraining order. The department shared the documents on X, claiming that García had a history of domestic abuse, statements press secretary Leavitt referenced during today’s press briefing.
“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order in case things escalated,”Vasquez Sura said in the statement, sent to Newsweek. “Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process.”
Here’s more of her statement:
“We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. That is not a justification for ICE‘s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation. Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
The Department of Health and Human Services may be facing a severe $40bn budget cut – slashing roughly a third in discretionary spending according to an internal budget document reported on by the Washington Post.
The “passback” document, which is part of the official budgeting process but is ultimately a draft outlining the president’s priorities, shows how Trump hopes to restructure the agencies responsible for heading the country’s response to diseases, food and drug safety, and research.
While Congress will have the final word on budgeting, the administration has already reduced the HHS workforce by a quarter as part of its broader goal to rapidly shrink the size and scope of the federal government.
Trump proposes stipend to immigrants who ‘self-deport’
Léonie Chao-Fong
Donald Trump has proposed giving money to immigrants in the country illegally who choose to leave voluntarily, and that his “self-deportation program” would include the prospect of those who are “good” re-entering the country later legally.
“We’re going to give them a stipend,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Noticias that aired on Tuesday.
“We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we’re going to work with them. If they’re good, if we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can.”
Fox Noticias interviewer Rachel Campos-Duffy, who is married to transportation secretary Sean Duffy, played a clip of a Mexican man who she said had arrived illegally in the US more than 20 years ago.
In the clip, the man said he would have backed Trump if he had been allowed to vote. “This is a guy that we want to keep,” Trump said.
Report: IRS plans to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt
The IRS is making plans to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status, according to a CNN reports published Wednesday, which sourced the info from two unnamed sources.
Trump said in posts online that he believed the university should lose its tax exemptions, and has repeatedly called for the school to apologize after it rejected the administration’s demands.
From CNN:
Gary Shapley, whom Trump this week picked as acting IRS commissioner, has the authority to rescind the tax exemption under federal law. Doing so typically comes after the agency has made a determination that an organization has violated the rules that govern tax exemptions for not-for-profit entities.
Not-for-profit organizations that benefit from the tax exemption can lose it if they violate a number of rules, including for political activity.
But a rescission would be a rare move by the IRS.”
Trump was expected to attend the press briefing today but did not appear. The briefing was also supposed to offer information on a range of topics, including tariffs and the Russia-Ukraine war.
But the entirety of the short briefing was instead devoted to chastising Democrats, especially Maryland Senator Van Hollen, over immigration policies. Patty Morin shared devastating details about her daughter’s murder – which has nothing to do with Kilmar Ábrego García, the former Maryland resident and refugee the administration has been ordered to bring back to the United States.
This isn’t the first time Trump has used victims or victims’ families to make a case for broad claims about the dangers posed by undocumented immigrants. But researchers have found that they commit crimes at much lower rates than native-born citizens.
The “special guest” at today’s briefing is Patty Morin, the mother of a woman who was raped and murdered in 2023. A Salvadorian man, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, was convicted of the crime this week.
Morin has been outspoken about the loss of her daughter, blaming Democrats and on former president Biden’s border policies.
Leavitt: ‘Kilmar Ábrego García will never live in the US again’
The press briefing has just begun and press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened with attacks on Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador in an attempt to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.
Saying that Democrats refuse to “accept the will of the American people,” Leavitt repeated administration claims that García was a member of the MS-13 gang, and she also called him a terrorist.
“There is no Maryland father,” she said, referring to how García has been described in the media. She repeated the administration’s position that if he is brought back to the US, “he would be immediately deported again”.
“Nothing will change the fact that Ábrego García will never be a Maryland father. He will never live in the United States of America again.”
Nina Lakhani
We have an update on the delayed $380m in energy aid owed to the states – money appropriated by Congress to help low income households pay energy bills but which is currently in limbo after the Trump administration eliminated the office that oversees the bipartisan program and fired the entire staff.
The Guardian has seen an email sent earlier today to all the states from defendthespend@hhs.gov – which we’re assuming is the work of Trump’s billionaire mega-donor Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge. It reads:
“We are requesting additional clarification regarding this payment. An ideal payment justification includes a description of the award and what you plan to do with the funds.”
The email then includes a link to an online form before continuing:
“If you have any inquiries, you can reply to this email directly. God Bless America.”
It’s unclear what additional information HHS – or Doge – needs.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program( Liheap) has helped families with the rising cost of home energy bills for more than four decades, and enjoys widespread bipartisan support. Congress appropriated $4.1bn for 2024/25 fiscal year, of which 90% has already been distributed. But the remaining 10% has been in limbo since the Trump Administration eliminated the Division of Energy Assistance (DEA) – the office overseeing Liheap.
An estimated one in six households are behind on their energy bills, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (Neada), which means millions of families are at risk of utilities cutting the power cut off in what’s expected to be another record-breaking hot summer.
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