Donald Trump’s Justice Department told the states to turn in their immigrants or their neediest families will lose their welfare checks.
Every state shares $16.4 billion in cash aid for needy families. For 28 years only welfare offices had to report undocumented immigrants to Washington. Now every state agency must, including the DMV and the board that licenses people who cut hair.
The government said the change “does not impose new obligations on states,” then added that they can always give up the money. Every mob movie has the scene where the man in the doorway is sorry to bother you and would hate to see anything happen to the store. This time the people who get hurt are the families who need help the most.
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Kennedy Center removes Joel Shapiro's "Blue" sculpture from its grounds with no explanation, 11 weeks after a court forced Trump's name off the building.
Today’s GovBrief News
National Park Service fences off swaths of the National Mall to demonstrators and events through Jan. 24 for turf repair, a closure spanning the midterms.
Source: WTTG Washington
September 2, 2026
Chevron commits $7 billion to more than double Venezuela oil output by 2031, 8 months after US forces seized Maduro and took over the country's oil exports.
Source: CNBC
September 2, 2026
Trump floats renaming the Strait of Hormuz "TRUMP STRAIT," claiming US control of a waterway shared by Iran and Oman, weeks after vowing to declare it US territory.
Source: The Hill
September 2, 2026
Trump says US hit Iran "very hard" and can strike again "anytime," as Pentagon confirms troops were told to stop saying "Operation Epic Fury," declared over May 5.
Source: CBS News
September 2, 2026
ICE plans to pay up to $5 million to compile voter rolls and voting histories from all 50 states, after courts rejected DOJ's demands for the same data.
Source: Wired
September 2, 2026
Trump administration threatens to end federal artifact loans, grants and contracts to the Smithsonian "under current leadership," escalating a year-long campaign over its slavery and diversity exhibits.
Source: Reuters
September 2, 2026
Childcare waitlists grow from 8 states to 23 plus DC, stranding hundreds of thousands of eligible children, after Congress let $28 billion in pandemic aid lapse, AP finds.
Source: The Associated Press
September 2, 2026
Pentagon yanks decades of classified deployment records off its secret network, days after the Washington Post reported top commanders used them to warn the Iran war is unsustainable.
Source: The Washington Post
September 2, 2026
Justice Department blocks civil rights charges against ICE agent Christian Castro, who shot a Venezuelan immigrant through a Minneapolis door, over the prosecutor's "strongest possible" objections, ProPublica reports.
Source: ProPublica
September 2, 2026
Justice Department sides with OpenAI against The New York Times, arguing a copyright win for news publishers would "threaten national security" and subsidize "old mainstream media."
Source: Nieman Lab
September 2, 2026
Captured Venezuelan leader Maduro asks a Manhattan judge to toss his drug indictment on head-of-state immunity, arguing no US court has ever tried a sitting foreign leader.
Source: Euronews
September 2, 2026
Federal judge blocks Trump's second birthright citizenship order as "almost certainly unconstitutional," citing the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling against the first 2 months earlier.
Source: NBC News
September 2, 2026
Federal judge rejects Justice Department's bid to break up Google's ad tech business, ordering behavior changes instead, 16 months after ruling it an illegal monopoly.
Source: Courthouse News Service
September 2, 2026
Immigrant rights group CHIRLA sues Homeland Security to halt voter roll matching that claims 190,000 noncitizens registered in California, a figure it calls "almost certainly widely incorrect."
Source: Spectrum News
September 2, 2026
Justice Department declares all agencies in every state must report suspected undocumented immigrants or risk future welfare funds, reinterpreting a 1996 law prior administrations applied only to benefits offices.
Source: NOTUS
September 2, 2026
New York City bars nearly 600,000 public school students through eighth grade from using generative AI for a year, as Mayor Mamdani rejects the tech industry's "inevitable" framing.
Source: WABC New York
September 2, 2026
FAA proposes permanent flight restrictions around Mar-a-Lago at the Secret Service's request, covering times Trump is away, near the airport renamed for him in July.
Source: WPBF Palm Beach
September 2, 2026
FBI opens probe into dark web service selling 153 million driver's license scans, including Defense Secretary Hegseth's, apparently siphoned from ID verification firm idscan.net, Krebs on Security reports.
Source: Krebs on Security
September 2, 2026
US Mint starts selling $1 coins with Trump's face after its advisory committee refused to review them, putting the first sitting president on US currency since Coolidge in 1926.
Source: USA Today
September 2, 2026
Kennedy Center hauls away Joel Shapiro's "Blue" sculpture by crane, closing Rock Creek Parkway for 7 rush-hour hours, days after Trump floated demolishing the building.
Source: WUSA Washington
September 2, 2026
San Diego County seeds a $300,000 revolving loan fund for East County small businesses that can't get bank loans, unlocking $400,000 in federal matching funds.
Source: San Diego County
September 2, 2026
House Veterans' Affairs Committee votes 19-0 to subpoena Oracle's Larry Ellison after the VA nearly tripled Oracle's $10 billion health records contract it once vowed to finish without overruns.
Source: NextGov
September 2, 2026