The primary 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second time period have landed laborious on the Bay State.
From his fights with establishments of upper studying over their use of DEI insurance policies or the actions of scholars, to his choice to focus on “sanctuary jurisdictions” for federal funding cuts, listed below are a number of the actions taken by the forty seventh President or his administration throughout these first few months that instantly have an effect on Massachusetts.
A crimson collision
The Trump administration issued Harvard College a set of coverage calls for and indicated their entry to federal grant and analysis funding was contingent on their compliance.
Harvard refused, with College President Alan Garber calling them “unprecedented demands being made by the federal government to control the Harvard community.” The administration responded by ordering a halt to over $2.2 billion in funding.
Harvard has since sued the Trump administration, and a trial over the funding freeze is scheduled for July 21.
Nationwide Institutes for Health Funding
Trump’s “department of government efficiency” was created with the ostensible mission of discovering and reducing waste from the federal price range. Among the many cuts recognized by the administration have been funds provisioned for scientific and medical analysis on the nation’s prime establishments.
After a whole lot of Massachusetts establishments obtained $3.5 billion in funding from the NIH in fiscal 2024, the cuts will likely be felt throughout the state, based on Gov. Maura Healey. Every analysis greenback interprets into two-to-three instances as a lot financial exercise within the state, the governor has stated, and “the full hit to our economy will be much worse” than the worth of misplaced federal funding.
Bringing ‘hell’ to Boston
True to his phrase, Trump “border czar” Tom Homan has introduced the load of the federal immigration equipment down on Massachusetts.
Throughout one five-day stretch in March, immigration officers took virtually 400 “illegal aliens” into custody from throughout the commonwealth. In line with the Trump Administration, most of the apprehended folks “have serious criminal convictions and charges, including murder, child rape, fentanyl trafficking, and armed robbery.”
Public Health Grant cancellations
In March, the Healey administration “condemned” Trump’s choice to chop $11 billion in as-yet unobligated public well being grants, $100 million of which have been as a result of Massachusetts over the following 12 months.
The funding is supposed for group well being facilities, state vaccine infrastructure, and to assist “the core functions of the State Public Health Laboratory” the place testing for illnesses comparable to fowl flu is performed.
The taking of Rümeysa Öztürk
The Trump administration’s plan to crack down on unlawful immigration took an area and unprecedented flip in late March, when Tufts College graduate scholar Rümeysa Öztürk was surrounded by masked immigrations brokers, handcuffed, positioned in an unmarked automotive, and whisked out of state regardless of a court docket order demanding she be stored in Massachusetts.
The Turkish nationwide’s scholar visa had been revoked — a reality she and her legal professionals realized solely after her sudden disappearance — over her op-ed printed in a Tufts scholar newspaper calling on the college to acknowledge the outcomes of a vote by the coed authorities relating to Israel’s conflict in Gaza.
Öztürk is at present being held in Louisiana because the Trump administration fights a Vermont choose’s order to return her to New England by Could 1.
Sanctuary Metropolis ordeal
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was amongst a handful of Democratic municipal officers referred to as earlier than Congress earlier this 12 months to reply for his or her metropolis’s so-called sanctuary insurance policies. Boston doesn’t select to name itself a sanctuary metropolis, however its coverage of not inquiring a couple of resident’s immigration standing earlier than offering metropolis companies and refusal to cooperate with immigration officers over civil issues would possible qualify it as such.
On Monday, Trump signed an government order calling on his Secretary of Homeland Safety and Lawyer Basic to develop and publish a listing of “sanctuary jurisdictions,” and notify them they’re vulnerable to dropping all federal funding if these insurance policies stay.
Cuts to Okay-12 funding
In February, the administration introduced it might lower $2 billion price of Training Stabilization Funds, $106 million of which was meant for Massachusetts. That cash, based on the governor, “was supposed to go right to Massachusetts students and schools.”
The funding was allotted to pay for psychological well being companies, math tutoring, “high-quality instructional material with a focus on science,” enhanced screenings for college kids vulnerable to poor studying outcomes, college constructing upgrades, {and professional} improvement packages for lecturers.
Lawsuits
Lawyer Basic Andrea Campbell out of the blue finds herself in the course of at least a dozen lawsuits in opposition to the Trump administration, lots of them geared toward reversing the results of Trump’s quite a few government orders.
To this point, she has sued him or joined lawsuits over NIH funding, cuts to the Division of Training, mass firings of probationary federal workers, and his plan to finish the 14th Modification’s assure of birthright citizenship, amongst different court docket actions.
The most up-to-date lawsuit, joined final Friday, goals to dam the administration’s plan for federal training funding for “state and local agencies that refuse to abandon lawful programs and policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” based on Campbell’s workplace. That would imply a lack of $575.2 million.
Offshore Wind
What gave the impression to be the start of a rising new trade has been successfully stymied by Trump’s longstanding ideas on the effectivity and supposed risks of wind energy.
Among the many president’s first actions after taking workplace was an government order calling for an finish to new offshore wind leases and permits, however leaving present permits — like these granted for a pair of initiatives at present underneath development off the Bay State coast — in place for now.
Nonetheless, in mid-April, Secretary of the Inside Doug Burgum ordered a halt to development of a challenge off the coast of New York, and current reporting suggests that, nationally, the wind trade is feeling critical apprehension underneath Trump.
