Trump has rescinded DACA:
http://thehill.com/latino/348848-sessio ... six-months
The Trump administration said Tuesday it was ending an Obama-era program allowing young people who came to the country illegally as children to live here free from fear of deportation. "The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded," Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in a televised statement. President Trump released a written statement that cast President Obama's creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as going beyond his constitutional responsibilities.
..The president said Congress could take up DACA if it wished, but he made it clear that this should be done in the context of broader immigration reform that could include the building of a wall on the border and new curbs on legal immigration that have been offered by two GOP senators. "Congress now has the opportunity to advance responsible immigration reform that puts American jobs and American security first," Trump said.
800,000 young people have now put targets on their backs by having registered for this program:
DACA recipients ...had passed background checks and paid a fee to get deferral from deportation and a work permit. Obama put the program in place through a 2012 executive order. Approximately 800,000 people are recipients under the program.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... nding-daca
Trump administration officials worried ahead of the announcement Tuesday of a phaseout of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that President Trump didn't fully understand what the move would mean.
...The New York Times reported Tuesday that administration officials privately raised concerns as late as one hour before the announcement about Trump's understanding of the effects of rescinding DACA.
Other bad news for students:
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/34922 ... udent-loan
The Education Department on Friday announced it will stop working with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to police student loan fraud. The department, now led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, cancelled agreements with the CFPB from 2011 and 2013 that established the working relationship, arguing the agency violated their terms by overstepping its boundaries.
...The Education officials said the department “takes exception to the CFPB unilaterally expanding its oversight role to include the Department’s contracted federal loan servicers,” and called it “characteristic of an overreaching and unaccountable agency.”
This is part of a pattern:
The department recently revoked Obama-era protections for victims of student loan servicing fraud, and appointed a former DeVry University official to lead Education’s enforcement division. That office previously fined DeVry and other for-profit colleges hundreds of millions of dollars for defrauding and lying to students.
Maybe Trump wants to open another crooked "university"?
The EPA is making sure that anyone hoping for a scientific grant conform to Trump's political views:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... -decisions
A former Trump campaign aide has been charged with decisions on grant funding at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), The Washington Post reported.John Konkus — who works in the EPA's public affairs office — reportedly reviews all of the awards from the EPA. He also reviews grant solicitations. In his role, he has told grant officers that references to climate change should be taken out.
His decisions on the EPA's funding have affected money given to universities and nonprofit organizations, according to the Post
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It looks like at least 3 of the national monuments to be partially destroyed are in Utah and Oregon:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... hich-ones/
In a report Zinke submitted to the White House, the secretary recommended reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as well as Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, according to multiple individuals briefed on the decision.
..Zinke, who had called for revising Bears Ears’ boundaries in an interim report in June, is recommending a “significant” reduction in its size, an administration official said.
The report also calls for changing the management rules for several sites, such as allowing fishing in marine monuments where it is currently prohibited, and would affect the boundaries of other monuments beyond the three officials identified Thursday.
There is still a lot of secrecy around this report, no doubt because it will be highly unpopular with many (most?) Americans.