Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem canceled $2.7 million in DHS grants to Harvard University on Wednesday.
In a statement, Noem announced the cancelation of two grants for the university, and declared the elite Massachusetts Ivy League institution "unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars."
The university has been ordered to submit records by April 30, or risk losing its certification to enroll international students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP).
"With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory," Noem said in the statement. "America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars."
The canceled grants include an $800,303 "Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention" award, which DHS says classified conservatives as far-right extremists, and a $1,934,902 "Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement" grant, which funded public health messaging that Noem’s office described as ideologically skewed.
The move follows President Donald Trump's decision to freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard and ask for the IRS to revoke its tax-exempt status.
The IRS is currently reviewing the university’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit designation, according to sources within the Department of Justice (DOJ). A final decision has not yet been made.
In a social media post, Trump criticized Harvard’s leadership and faculty, writing, "Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders.’" He continued, "Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds."
The DHS action comes amid a broader federal crackdown on campus antisemitism following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
In the months since, Harvard has faced criticism over antisemitic rhetoric and protests involving students and faculty. Noem’s letter references "foreign visa-holding rioters" and calls for Harvard to provide documentation of their conduct.
With a $53.2 billion endowment, Harvard is one of the wealthiest institutions in the world. DHS emphasized that the university can afford to fund its own programs and should not rely on taxpayer money if it is not meeting federal standards for student conduct and institutional accountability.
Harvard has not yet publicly responded to the termination of the grants or the DHS demand for records.
The Department of Education is also scrutinizing the university. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon recently launched a review of more than $255.6 million in federal contracts and nearly $9 billion in grants involving Harvard and its affiliates.
"Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination — all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry — has put its reputation in serious jeopardy," McMahon said.
This move comes shortly after similar action was taken against Columbia University, as the federal government steps up enforcement on institutions it says are failing to meet civil rights and national security obligations.
A now-deported illegal alien accused of being an MS-13 gang member that was living illegally in Maryland has a record of being a "violent" repeat wife beater, according to court records filed in a Prince George’s County, Maryland, district court by his wife.
Fox News obtained the written domestic violence allegations filed in court against 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez, in 2021.
In the filing, written in Vasquez’s own handwriting, she alleges Abrego Garcia repeatedly beat her, writing: "At this point, I am afraid to be close to him. I have multiple photos/videos of how violent he can be and all the bruises he [has] left me."
Vasquez alleged that Abrego Garcia punched and scratched her on her eye, leaving her bleeding. He also allegedly threw her laptop on the floor.
She wrote that on another day, Abrego Garcia got angry again, started yelling, and ripped her shirt and shorts off before grabbing her arm and leaving marks.
Vasquez recalled two times in 2020 that Abrego Garcia hit her.
"In November 2020, he hit me with his work boot," she wrote. "In August 2020, he hit me in the eye leaving a purple eye."
Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released court documents regarding Abrego Garcia, which cast further doubt on the Democrats' narrative about his innocence.
DHS released new documents this week, which it says definitively proves Abrego Garcia, who was deported to the El Salvadoran mega prison "Terrorism Confinement Center" (CECOT) last month, is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang.
According to a Prince George's County Police Department interview sheet shared with Fox News by DHS, local police discovered Abrego Garcia during a murder investigation. Police found him loitering in a Home Depot parking lot with other known MS-13 gang members in possession of illicit drugs in 2019.
The police department’s Gang Unit MS-13 Intelligence Squad conducted an interview with Abrego Garcia and contacted a "past proven and reliable source" who identified him as an active member of MS-13 with the "Westerns" clique, with the rank of "Chequeo" and the moniker of "Chele."
The news comes as Democrats clamor for the return of Abrego Garcia, who they say was "wrongly deported" to a maximum-security prison in his home country as part of the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on illegal migrant crime.
Last week, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision ordering the Trump administration to arrange Abrego Garcia’s return. The court required the "government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador."
The Trump administration agreed to clear any administrative obstacles keeping Abrego Garcia from returning to the U.S., but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that returning him is "up to El Salvador. If they want to return him. That's not up to us."
This has caused outrage among Democrats, many of whom have begun referring to him as a "Maryland man" who was wrongly deported. Some have even suggested he was kidnapped by the Trump administration.
"Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to El Salvador as part of the Trump Administration’s government-funded kidnapping rampage," Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., posted on X. "He is rotting away in a foreign prison where his life is in danger. We need to go there now to make sure he’s okay."
On Wednesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., flew to El Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia in prison and work to secure his release. His trip has been criticized by many, including the mother of Rachel Morrin, a 39-year-old Maryland mother who was raped and murdered by a Salvadoran illegal immigrant in 2023.
"To have a senator from Maryland who didn't even acknowledge, or barely acknowledge, my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother and now a grandbaby without a grandmother so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that's not even an American citizen. Why does that person have more rights than I do, or my daughter, or my grandchildren? I don't understand this," she said.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security doubled down, saying Abrego Garcia has a "history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as."
DHS shared court filings in which Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he "punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt."
And a 2019 DHS interview document shared with Fox News shows Abrego Garcia admitted to being in the U.S. illegally and claimed to have "walked across the desert for many days entering illegally into the United States near McAllen, Texas on or about March 25, 2012."
As a result, Abrego Garcia was marked as eligible for deportation in 2019.
Through it all, the Trump administration continues to maintain it was right to deport Abrego Garcia to CECOT.
A federal immigration court in Baltimore further determined Abrego Garcia was not eligible for release because he "failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others, as the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13."
The court held that "the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of infonnation [sic]’ verified the Respondent's gang membership, rank, and gang name is sufficient to support that the Respondent is a gang member" and that Abrego had "failed to present evidence to rebut that assertion."
"Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not a ‘Maryland Man’—he is an MS-13 gang member involved in human trafficking who entered the United States illegally," DHS posted on X. "His deportation to El Salvador was always going to be the end result."
DHS bashed Van Hollen for advocating Abrego Garcia’s release, saying the senator "has done more to bring a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and illegal alien back to Maryland than he has to help keep his American constituents safe or advocate for the victims of these vicious gangs like MS-13."
"While Sen. Van Hollen and the mainstream media peddle a sob story about a brutal MS-13 gang member, Secretary Noem stands with the victims of illegal alien crime," said DHS. "We hear far too much about the gang members and criminals' sob stories and not enough about their victims."
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin posted some more details about his arrest, saying, in addition to being apprehended with other MS-13 members, he was found with "rolls of cash and drugs" and "wearing what is effectively MS-13’s uniform."
Speaking with Fox News on Monday, McLaughlin said Abrego Garcia is "exactly where he belongs, home in El Salvador."
"The media would love for you to believe that this is some media darling, that he is just some Maryland father, but Osama bin Laden was also a father, and yet he wasn’t a good guy, and they are actually both terrorists," she added. "He should be in this El Salvador prison, prison for terrorists, and I hope he will remain there."
President Donald Trump participated in a Wednesday evening prayer service and dinner as part of a series of Holy Week events ahead of Easter Sunday this weekend.
Faith leaders of various Christian denominations were present and listened to the president address them about the importance of faith, both in governing and in people's personal lives. Trump also took the moment to tout his recent accomplishments in-line with Christian beliefs, and slammed efforts to move the country away from its Christian foundation.
"This is really — I hope — going to be one of the great Easters ever, because we have something going that I don't think this country has seen in 100 years. And as we gather with family and friends, we'll not forget the true source of our joy and our strength: America has put our trust in God," Trump said during his address to attendees. "It will always be ‘In God We Trust.’ We will never change that."
"You know there's a movement to change it," Trump continued. "It won't happen. We won't let that happen. Can you imagine a movement to change that?"
Trump also slammed former administrations for failing to stand up for persecuted Christians around the globe, reassuring the crowd of faith leaders in attendance that things would be different under his administration.
"We had nobody fighting for our Christians in other parts of the world, that were being so incredibly destroyed, killed, injured, hurt. But they died, so many died. You wouldn't think that could happen in this time — in this modern time," Trump said.
Trump also remarked about the anti-Christian bias exhibited in the U.S., pointing out to those in attendance that he established a Justice Department task force to root it out. Trump also touted his creation of the White House Faith Office, which replaced the former White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
"You don't hear about that very much, but there is anti-Christian bias," Trump said.
Trump will continue his Holy Week celebrations with another prayer service tomorrow, on Holy Thursday, which will again include various faith leaders from different Christian denominations and members of the president's staff. The event will include Christian hymns sung by musicians associated with Liberty University, a private Christian university in Virginia.
The White House is also reportedly hosting a Passover event Thursday afternoon, to celebrate the Jewish holiday that began April 12 and ends April 20.
"With God's help we can overcome every challenge, triumph over every evil, and restore the spirit of faith in the United States for generations to come," Trump concluded. "We have a very simple slogan: ‘Make America Great Again,’ and that's exactly what we're doing."
In addition to faith leaders, Patty Morin, whose daughter's death at the hands of an illegal immigrant in 2023 was a major point of contention during the last election, was also present at the Wednesday dinner service. She attended following an emotional press briefing earlier in the day at the White House during which she told her daughter's story.
"Her daughter's looking down on Patty today," Trump noted during the event, adding she's "been through hell."
The Department of Homeland Security has released court records it says definitively prove Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a member of the infamous MS-13 gang. This comes as Democrats clamor for the return of Abrego Garcia, who they say was "wrongly deported" to a maximum-security prison in his home country as part of the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on illegal migrant crime.
According to a Prince George's County, Maryland, Police Department interview sheet shared with Fox News by DHS, local police discovered Abrego Garcia during a murder investigation. Police found him loitering in a Home Depot parking lot with other known MS-13 gang members in possession of illicit drugs in 2019.
Prince George's County Gang Unit MS-13 Intelligence Squad conducted an interview with Abrego Garcia and contacted a "past proven and reliable source" who identified him as an active member of MS-13 with the "Westerns" clique, with the rank of "Chequeo" and the moniker of "Chele."
Additionally, publicly available court records filed against Abrego Garcia cast further doubt on the Democrats' narrative about his innocence.
Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to a controversial mega prison, the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador, in March along with several hundred other alleged gang members living in the U.S. Though he was deported for being an alleged MS-13 gang member, his attorneys maintain he was living in the U.S. legally and does not have any gang ties.
Last week, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision ordering the Trump administration to arrange Abrego Garcia’s return. The court required the "government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador."
The Trump administration agreed to clear any administrative obstacles keeping Abrego Garcia from returning to the U.S., but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that returning him is "up to El Salvador. If they want to return him. That's not up to us."
This has caused outrage among Democrats, many of whom have begun referring to him as a "Maryland man" who was wrongly deported. Some have even suggested he was kidnapped by the Trump administration.
"Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to El Salvador as part of the Trump Administration’s government-funded kidnapping rampage," Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., posted on X. "He is rotting away in a foreign prison where his life is in danger. We need to go there now to make sure he’s okay."
On Wednesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., flew to El Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia in prison and work to secure his release. His trip has been criticized by many, including the mother of Rachel Morrin, a 39-year-old Maryland mother who was raped and murdered by a Salvadoran illegal immigrant in 2023.
"To have a senator from Maryland who didn't even acknowledge, or barely acknowledge, my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother and now a grandbaby without a grandmother so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that's not even an American citizen. Why does that person have more rights than I do, or my daughter, or my grandchildren? I don't understand this," she said.
Through it all, the Trump administration continues to maintain it was right to deport Abrego Garcia to CECOT.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security doubled down, saying Abrego Garcia has a "history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as."
DHS shared court filings in which Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he "punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt."
And a 2019 DHS interview document shared with Fox News shows Abrego Garcia admitted to being in the U.S. illegally and claimed to have "walked across the desert for many days entering illegally into the United States near McAllen, Texas on or about March 25, 2012."
As a result, Abrego Garcia was marked as eligible for deportation in 2019.
A federal immigration court in Baltimore further determined Abrego Garcia was not eligible for release because he "failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others, as the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13."
The court held that "the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of infonnation [sic]’ verified the Respondent's gang membership, rank, and gang name is sufficient to support that the Respondent is a gang member" and that Abrego had "failed to present evidence to rebut that assertion."
"Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not a ‘Maryland Man’—he is an MS-13 gang member involved in human trafficking who entered the United States illegally," DHS posted on X. "His deportation to El Salvador was always going to be the end result."
DHS bashed Van Hollen for advocating Abrego Garcia’s release, saying the senator "has done more to bring a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and illegal alien back to Maryland than he has to help keep his American constituents safe or advocate for the victims of these vicious gangs like MS-13."
"While Sen. Van Hollen and the mainstream media peddle a sob story about a brutal MS-13 gang member, Secretary Noem stands with the victims of illegal alien crime," said DHS. "We hear far too much about the gang members and criminals' sob stories and not enough about their victims."
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin posted some more details about his arrest, saying, in addition to being apprehended with other MS-13 members, he was found with "rolls of cash and drugs" and "wearing what is effectively MS-13’s uniform."
Speaking with Fox News on Monday, McLaughlin said Abrego Garcia is "exactly where he belongs, home in El Salvador."
"The media would love for you to believe that this is some media darling, that he is just some Maryland father, but Osama bin Laden was also a father, and yet he wasn’t a good guy, and they are actually both terrorists," she added. "He should be in this El Salvador prison, prison for terrorists, and I hope he will remain there."
Former Democratic Congresswoman from Virginia Abigail Spanberger is being accused by her GOP opponent in the upcoming Virginia governor's race of failing to include her role as a trustee in financial disclosure reports while she was a member of Congress.
The campaign for Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who is aiming to replace incumbent GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin, is calling the incomplete disclosures "a calculated lie," not an "accident." But, according to Spanberger's campaign, the only asset contained in the trust is Spanberger's personal residence, which is not required to be disclosed.
In 2017, according to local real estate records, Spanberger and her husband updated their will and, as part of that process, transferred ownership of their home into a trust that listed the pair's kids as the beneficiaries. They bought it for roughly half-a-million dollars, and it is now worth close to one-million.
After opening the trust, Spanberger did not include it in any of her annual financial disclosure reports that are mandated by Congress while serving in the House of Representatives .Nor did she include it in a "Virginia Economic Interest Statement" filed last month.
"Personal residences that do not earn income are not required to be disclosed, so Abigail did not disclose her family’s only home — as doing so would make their home address publicly available," the Spanberger campaign told Fox News Digital. "Abigail filed her disclosures in accordance with House Ethics rules, which do not require her to disclose her role as a trustee of a living trust holding only her family’s home."
However, the Earle-Sears campaign says that Spanberger's explanations of privacy and wanting to keep her family safe fall short.
"Abigail Spanberger got caught hiding a trust — and not just any trust, but one holding nearly a million dollars in assets," Earle-Sears campaign press secretary Peyton Vogel said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "That’s not an accident — that’s a calculated lie. Disclosure forms don’t require anyone to put their families at risk — only honesty. If she’s willing to lie about something this serious, Virginians just can’t trust her."
Additionally, the Earle-Sears campaign has pointed to Congress' House Ethics Manual requirement that members of Congress "must disclose any nongovernmental positions, whether or not compensated, that they currently hold," including the position of "trustee."
Spanberger joined Congress representing a district in the northern part of Virginia in 2018, and was reelected in two subsequent election cycles — 2020 and 2022. Spanberger did not seek reelection in 2024, but is now running to replace Youngkin after he is term-limited later this year.
Earle-Sears was elected lieutenant governor in 2021, cementing herself in the history books as the first woman of color elected to statewide office in Virginia.
Both candidates have been tapped by their respective parties to be their candidate in the upcoming November general election, according to local media reports. Cook-political report currently labels the race as a toss-up.
Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content.
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-Third top DOD staffer Collin Carroll on administrative leave
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A federal judge said Wednesday that he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt for failing to return two planes deporting migrants to El Salvador last month, a major update that comes as tensions between the Trump administration and the judiciary have reached a fever pitch.
In a 48-page order, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said that the court had determined that the Trump administration had demonstrated a "willful disregard" for his March 15 emergency order, which temporarily halted all deportation flights to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime immigration law, to allow the court to better consider the merits of the case.
Boasberg had also ordered all planes bound for El Salvador to be "immediately" returned to U.S. soil — which did not happen. Hundreds of migrants arrived in El Salvador later that evening, where the individuals were detained in a sprawling, maximum-security Salvadorian prison…Read more
DUFFY ON DRONES: Duffy contrasts Biden-era 'drone fiasco' with Trump admin's 'radical transparency' after FAA announces testing
ECONOMIC PRIORITIES: JD Vance gears up to talk economic priorities during trips to Italy, India
SEWAGE CRISIS: EPA chief takes on Mexican 'sewage crisis' flowing into US waters where Navy SEALs train
TRUMP VS COURTS: Bondi defiant, says Abrego Garcia will stay in El Salvador 'end of the story'
The Trump administration has asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, sources within the Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed to Fox News.
The Ivy League school's failure to address antisemitism on campus is grounds for losing their 501(c)(3) status, Fox News' sources said.
The IRS is expected to make a final decision soon on Harvard's tax exemption, according to CNN, which was first to report the story.
In a recent social media post, President Donald Trump claimed that Harvard had "lost its way" and didn't deserve federal funding.
"Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders,'" Trump wrote. "Look just to the recent past at their plagiarizing President, who so greatly embarrassed Harvard before the United States Congress."
"Many others, like these Leftist dopes, are teaching at Harvard, and because of that, Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges," he continued.
"Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds."
This is a breaking story. Check back with us for updates.
The mother of a Maryland woman who an illegal immigrant from El Salvador raped and murdered in 2023 appeared at the White House Wednesday, after a jury convicted her daughter’s murderer on Monday.
Patty Morin’s appearance comes as her senator, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, visited El Salvador on Wednesday to check on a Maryland resident the Trump administration's Justice Department deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration claims that the Maryland resident and El Salvador native, Abrego Garcia, has ties to the MS-13 gang.
"To have a senator from Maryland who didn't even acknowledge, or barely acknowledge, my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother…so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that's not even an American citizen?" Morin told reporters Wednesday at the White House. "Why does that person have more right than I do, or my daughter or my grandchildren? I don't, I don't understand this."
Van Hollen’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
A jury in the Harford County Circuit court found Victor Martinez-Hernandez, originally from El Salvador guilty on all counts of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sexual offense and kidnapping.
Van Hollen’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. However, following Martinez-Hernandez’s conviction, Van Hollen issued a statement vowing to bolster border security while also "supporting our immigrant communities."
"While the conviction of Rachel Morin’s killer will not return Rachel to her family where she rightfully belongs, this verdict brings a measure of justice that they so deserve," Van Hollen said in a statement. "I’m grateful to the law enforcement officers who brought her killer into custody and for our legal process for delivering this justice."
Martinez-Hernandez attacked Rachel Morin, 37, in August 2023 on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, a trail Patty Morin said the family had walked for 25 years as Maryland residents.
"When she went on that trail that day, she was not planning on dying. She wasn't planning on walking to her death," Patty Morin told reporters. "She was planning on going to the grocery store with her girls afterwards. Victor Martinez, he waited for her. He waited for her to come closer. He saw her. He saw that there was nobody around, he attacked her. He dragged her 150 feet, blood gushing from her head."
Patty Morin shared with the press the horrific details of her daughter’s murder, including how Martinez-Hernandez raped and strangled her daughter after crushing her skull like an "eggshell."
Patty Morin said photos of the brutal attack show that not "one inch" of her daughter’s body remained free from injury. These photos have since been sealed because they are so graphic, she said.
"You could see where the blood ran down around her as he was raping her, and then he threw her down, and raped her some more, and then he strangled her because he didn't want her to be able to live to tell the story," Patty Morin said.
Patty Morin also shared that Martinez-Hernandez did not appear to express any remorse in the courtroom for his actions.
"These are the kind of criminals President Trump wants to remove from our country," Patty Morin said. "These are the kind of criminals that we need to remove from our country. We are American citizens. Why should we allow people like this, violent criminals that have no conscience at all to murder our mothers, our sisters, our daughters?"
Meanwhile, Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador Wednesday in an attempt to meet with Garcia. The Trump administration’s Justice Department admitted that it deported Garcia in an "administrative error."
Additionally, the Supreme Court upheld Thursday a lower court's order that "requires the government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador."
While Van Hollen met with El Salvador’s Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa Garay during his trip, he was not permitted to visit Garcia at the prison "Terrorism Confinement Center" (CECOT). However, Van Hollen told reporters he would continue to try to meet with him in the future.
"I am going to keep pressing," Van Hollen said. "I will keep pressing in my remaining time here, and I will keep pressing beyond that if necessary."
Fox News’ Ashley Carnahan and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
An audit of D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) found staffing levels in the district have increased at a rate of seven-and-a-half times more than student enrollment, while simultaneously student achievement levels in the district still remain behind pre-pandemic levels for most students.
The Office of the District of Columbia Auditor found that over a five-year period, while student enrollment grew by 2.6%, the number of staff increased by 19.5%. This amounts to roughly 1,600 new positions funded by the district since Fiscal Year 2020, and an approximately 43% increase in per-pupil spending.
"DC Public Schools works every day to help all our scholars reach their full potential. This recent report highlights a staffing strategy that prioritizes teachers and led to increases in enrollment and academic performance that stands out from other urban school districts. DCPS will work with the Office of the Chief Financial Officer to identify ways to improve data systems to demonstrate the district's continued fiscal stewardship," DCPS press secretary Evan Lambert told Fox News Digital in response to the audit's findings. "Following the sunset of federal pandemic relief, DCPS has increased local funding to schools by decreasing the overall number of Central Services staff."
The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, known colloquially as the nation's report card, showed some improvements since the assessment was last released in 2022, but student achievement levels in reading and math nationally remain below 2019 levels for most students. In D.C. specifically, students saw better improvement than most big urban districts, but students in the nation's capital have still not yet fully returned to pre-pandemic achievement levels, per the nation's report card.
The United States is the third-biggest spender among the 40 other developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on per-pupil spending, according to the Education Data Initiative. The pandemic spurred a massive influx of cash into the public school system as well, but many districts were found to be putting all that extra funding toward staff salaries and bonuses, as opposed to things directly related to student achievement.
"Thanks to an infusion of $190 billion in federal relief funds, schools have been on a hiring spree over the last few years," stated an analysis by nonprofit education news group The 74. "For example, before the pandemic, Los Angeles Unified was reducing its teacher count pretty much in line with its declining enrollment. But with the infusion of federal (and state) funds, Los Angeles kept staffing levels constant despite further enrollment declines. Gwinnett County in Georgia shows a similar bifurcated trend. Its staffing and enrollment lines were moving in tandem until the federal funds drove a rapid increase in hiring."
The 74, which stands for the 74 million American school children enrolled in K-12 schools across America, examined staffing and enrollment levels in over 9,500 school districts across the country, comprising roughly 92% of all K-12 students nationwide.
The nonprofit education newsgroup found that almost 3,000 districts saw staff levels increase despite enrollment declines. Others, according to the analysis, shrunk their staff counts, but not as quickly as they lost students, while another category included districts that gained students but increased their staffing levels even faster. According to The 74, public schools overall added approximately 121,000 employees last year overall, even though they served about 110,000 fewer students.
President Donald Trump and Republicans have taken steps to put greater control over school funding in the hands of individual states, as opposed to the federal government. Last month, he signed an executive order meant to effectively dismantle the U.S. Department of Education through transferring its educational authority to the states. Last week, GOP senators also introduced a bill to close the department.
"Despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% [since the 1970s,] there has been virtually no measurable improvement in student achievement," Trump's March 20 order stated. "President Donald J. Trump and his administration believe we can, and must, be better."
The mother of a Maryland woman who an illegal immigrant from El Salvador raped and murdered in 2023 appeared at the White House Wednesday, after a jury convicted her daughter’s murderer on Monday.
Patty Morin’s appearance comes as Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland visited El Salvador on Wednesday to check on a Maryland resident the Trump administration's Justice Department deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration claims that the Maryland resident, Abrego Garcia, has ties to the MS-13 gang.
"To have a senator from Maryland who didn't even acknowledge, or barely acknowledge, my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother…so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that's not even an American citizen?" Morin told reporters Wednesday at the White House. "Why does that person have more right than I do, or my daughter or my grandchildren? I don't, I don't understand this."
Van Hollen’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was denied a visit with a Salvadoran migrant and accused MS-13 member who was deported to El Salvador, after flying to the country on Wednesday morning.
Van Hollen intended to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, who was deported to the El Salvadoran mega prison "Terrorism Confinement Center" (CECOT) for being an alleged MS-13 gang member, though his attorneys maintain he does not have any gang ties.
Van Hollen spoke to reporters from El Salvador on Wednesday afternoon, when he vowed to continue pressing for access to Abrego Garcia.
He met with Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa Garay because President Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez was out of the country, though Van Hollen said he was grateful to speak about the case of Abrego Garcia.
"I asked the vice president if I could meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia, and he said, ‘well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT,’" Van Hollen said.
He told Ulloa that he was not interested in taking a tour of CECOT and that he just wanted to meet with Abrego Garcia.
"He said he was not able to make that happen," Van Hollen said of Ulloa.
When Van Hollen asked if he could come back next week to see Abrego Garcia, Ulloa told him he could not promise that, either. Ulloa also told the U.S. senator that he could not even arrange for him, or Abrego Garcia’s family, to speak with the inmate over the phone.
The senator said the situation in El Salvador is "unjust," and he accused the Trump administration of lying about Abrego Garcia.
"I am going to keep pressing," Van Hollen said. "I will keep pressing in my remaining time here, and I will keep pressing beyond that if necessary."
The Supreme Court last week upheld a lower court's decision to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from CECOT, where federal officials have sent hundreds of suspected criminals and gang members.
The Trump administration agreed to clear any administrative obstacles keeping Abrego Garcia from coming back to the U.S., but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that returning him is "up to El Salvador. If they want to return him. That's not up to us."
This has caused no small outrage from Democrats, with Van Hollen being the first to announce plans to travel to El Salvador to help secure Abrego Garcia’s release.
"Mr. Abrego Garcia was illegally abducted by the Trump Admin and, by their own admission, wrongly deported to El Salvador," Van Hollen posted to X on Tuesday.
"He shouldn’t have to spend another second away from his family," he went on. "I'm flying to El Salvador tomorrow morning to check on his condition and discuss his return."
Van Hollen's visit to El Salvador comes just two days after another illegal immigrant from El Salvador, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, was found guilty of murdering Bel Air, Maryland, resident Rachel Morin in August 2023.
Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was jogging along the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air when Martinez-Hernandez ambushed, strangled and beat her to death.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Van Hollen's visit to El Salvador was "appalling and sad," saying he and other Democrats plotting trips to the Central American country are "incapable of having any shred of common sense or empathy for their own constituents."
"Nobody knows this more than the woman standing to my right, Patty Morin, whose beautiful daughter Rachel was brutally maimed and murdered at the hands of an illegal alien in August 2023," Leavitt said while introducing Rachel Morin's mother. "Patty no longer has her daughter because of the failed Democrat Party's open border. And these are policies that President Trump is bringing an end to."
Patty Morin spoke to reporters about her daughter's final moments, saying that "she was not planning on dying. She wasn't planning on walking to her death. She was planning on going to the grocery store with her girls afterwards."
"Victor Martinez, he waited for her. He waited for her to come closer. He saw her. He saw that there was nobody around. He attacked her," Patty said.
She continued, describing the gruesome photos presented to her by prosecutors making their case against Martinez-Hernandez.
Some of the photos, she said, showed Rachel's body against the bloody outline of her body against a wall, where blood ran down as Martinez-Hernandez raped her before strangling her so she could not live to tell the story.
"These are the kind of criminals President Trump wants to remove from our country. These are the kind of criminals that we need removed from our country," Patty said. "We are American citizens. Why should we allow people like this, violent criminals that have no conscience at all, to murder our mothers, our sisters, our daughters?
"Why are we not protecting our children?" she continued. "And to have a senator from Maryland who didn't even acknowledge or barely acknowledge my daughter, and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother and now a grand baby without a grandmother, so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that's not even an American citizen. Why does that person have more rights than I do for my daughter? For my grandchildren?"
Still, Van Hollen is not the only Democrat discussing visiting Abrego Garcia and other imprisoned migrants. Far left Reps. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and Robert Garcia, D-Calif., issued a joint letter in which they said they are "prepared to travel as soon as possible."
In their letter, which was sent to House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer, R-Ky., on Tuesday, Frost and Garcia requested authorization to send a congressional delegation to visit CECOT to "conduct a welfare check" on Abrego Garcia and other deported migrants at the prison.
Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.
FIRST ON FOX: Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen drew wide rebuke for his sudden trip to El Salvador, during which he hopes to bring back deported Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Garcia is currently imprisoned in the South American country – and President Nayib Bukele indicated it would be "preposterous" to try to send him back to the U.S.
Van Hollen made waves Wednesday morning when he posted a selfie-video before flying to San Salvador, and calling the goal of his "mission" to let both countries’ governments know he won’t stop fighting until Garcia returns to Maryland.
Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican in the Old Line State’s delegation, slammed Van Hollen and contrasted the situation with Rachel Morin – who was murdered by an illegal immigrant found guilty Monday in Bel Air.
"The most striking… double standard, is that Rachel Morin, who was a constituent of mine, was brutally murdered by an illegal alien from El Salvador," Harris said.
"And Chris Van Hollen is not spending much time on that issue, but he's taking time to go to El Salvador to bring back a citizen of El Salvador to the United States who had entered the country illegally and which an immigration court… found evidence that he was an MS-13 gang member."
Van Hollen did release a print statement after Morin’s killer was convicted, saying he was grateful to law enforcement and calling for "meaningful action" to reform "our broken immigration system."
"We can do this while also supporting our immigrant communities and respecting the rights of individuals who are here legally – I am committed to doing both, and I will continue pressing my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to move forward on this issue," Van Hollen said.
White House communications director Steven Cheung mocked Van Hollen "and his bedwetting friends" for showing "more concern and sympathy for an illegal MS-13 gang member than victims of horrific migrant crimes."
Van Hollen previously had a mixed voting record on the illegal immigration issue.
He voted against the Laken Riley Act in January and publicly objected to the first Trump administration deporting two Salvadoran men in 2017 who were scholastic soccer stars.
"Shame on President Trump for tearing apart hardworking immigrant families. We should be focused on MS-13, not scholarship winners," he said.
Harris said efforts to "repatriate" Garcia to Maryland are also factually misguided.
"This gentleman has already been repatriated – back to El Salvador; the country of his citizenship. That is where he belongs."
"Rachel Morin, in fact, was a Maryland woman; This gentleman is not a Maryland man," he said, in reference to how Garcia has been described in the press. "We should probably worry about our own citizens before we worry about citizens of other countries."
Harris also lamented expending taxpayer funds for the trip, "to bring a citizen of a foreign country who entered America illegally back into the United States."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., took criticisms a step further, suggesting Van Hollen may be "flirting with treason" and saying Garcia is already "home, in El Salvador."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also cited Morin’s murder in their rebuke of Van Hollen, claiming he has done more to bring "a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and illegal alien back to Maryland" than he has to advocate for victims of gang violence.
Van Hollen’s stance did receive one prominent Maryland defender, with Gov. Wes Moore telling Fox News Digital, "We can be pro-public safety and pro-Constitution at the same time."
"We support Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s efforts to check on his health and safety and bring peace of mind to Kilmar’s family in Maryland – his wife, their 5-year-old child, and his two stepchildren, all who are U.S. citizens."
"Despite a unanimous Supreme Court decision, Trump is refusing to return Kilmar and is now even threatening to deport U.S. citizens to El Salvador."
Fox News Digital reached out to Van Hollen for comment but did not hear back.
While autism experts claim that the rise in cases stems from greater awareness and improved diagnostic testing, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shut down that idea Wednesday and, instead, attributed the rise in cases to environmental factors.
Those who discount that environmental exposure is a factor in rising autism cases are engaging in "epidemic denial," Kennedy told reporters Wednesday.
Kennedy appeared at HHS's headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss the latest findings on autism included in a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey released Tuesday.
"This is coming from an environmental toxin, and somebody made a profit by putting that environmental toxin into our air, our water, our medicines, our food," Kennedy said. "And it's to their benefit to say ‘Oh, to normalize it, to say all this is all normal, it's always been here.’ That's not good for our country."
Even so, the CDC's own new survey Kennedy addressed found that autism prevalence is on the rise and said the increase "might be due to differences in availability of services for early detection and evaluation and diagnostic practices."
Specifically, the survey found that one in 31 8-year-old children were diagnosed with autism in 2022 – up from one in 36 in 2000.
Additionally, the survey determined that autism rates were far more common for boys than girls. While one in 20 boys is diagnosed with autism, those numbers go down to one in 70 for girls.
While Kennedy acknowledged Wednesday there may be some genetic vulnerabilities that could contribute to increased odds of an autism diagnosis, he said the autism rates spiked starting in 1989 and that some new environmental toxin must have been introduced around that time.
"Why are we not seeing it in older people? Why is this only happening in young people?" Kennedy said. "Have you ever seen anybody our age – I'm 71 years old – with full blown autism? Head-banging, non-verbal, non-toilet-trained."
As a result, Kennedy said HHS' studies would examine toxins including mold, pesticides, air, water, different medications, as well as the age and obesity rates of parents, among other things.
"We’re going to look at all the potential culprits," Kennedy said.
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital regarding the apparent discrepancy between Kennedy's remarks and the CDC survey.
Kennedy signaled Thursday in a Cabinet meeting at the White House that the administration would kick off a massive research initiative to understand the cause of autism by September.
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy and legal advocacy on behalf of those with autism, pushed back against Kennedy’s statements in the Cabinet meeting and claimed Kennedy refused to acknowledge studies that point to genes as the underlying cause of autism.
"There is no evidence that autism is actually becoming more common (rather, we as a society are getting better at identifying it, and diagnostic standards have appropriately been widened)," the network said in a Thursday statement. "Even if it were, however, autistic and other disabled people belong in our society. To claim otherwise, and to speak as though our existence is some kind of calamity that must be eliminated, is a form of eugenics."
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