The Supreme Court on Saturday blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th century wartime law.

In a brief order, the court directed the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Supreme Court had said earlier in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.

“We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email.

On Friday, two federal judges refused to step in as lawyers for the men launched a desperate legal campaign to prevent their deportation, even as one judge said the case raised legitimate concerns. Early Saturday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused to issue an order protecting the detainees from being deported.

The administration is expected to return to the Supreme Court quickly in an effort to persuade the justices to lift their temporary order.

The ACLU had already sued to block deportations of two Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet facility and sought an order barring removals of any immigrants in the region under the Alien Enemies Act.

In an emergency filing early Friday, the ACLU warned that immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to President Donald Trump’s use of the act.

The act has only been invoked three previous times in U.S. history, most recently during World War II to hold Japanese-American civilians in internment camps. The Trump administration contended it gave them power to swiftly remove immigrants they identified as members of the gang, regardless of their immigration status.

Following the unanimous high court order on April 9, federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas promptly issued orders barring removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court.

But there had been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles north of Abilene in the far northern end of the state.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. He also balked at issuing a broader order prohibiting removal of all Venezuelans in the area under the act because he said removals hadn’t started yet.

But the ACLU’s Friday filing included sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials, was told to sign papers in English even though the client only spoke Spanish.

“ICE informed F.G.M. that these papers were coming from the President, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” Brown wrote.

Gelernt said in a Friday evening hearing before District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., that the administration initially moved Venezuelans to its south Texas immigration facility for deportation. But since a judge banned deportations in that area, it has funneled them to the Bluebonnet facility, where no such order exists. He said witnesses reported the men were being loaded on buses Friday evening to be taken to the airport.

With Hendrix not agreeing to the ACLU’s request for an emergency order, the group turned to Boasberg, who initially halted deportations in March. The Supreme Court ruled the orders against deportation could only come from judges in jurisdictions where immigrants were held, which Boasberg said made him powerless Friday.

“I’m sympathetic to everything you’re saying,” Boasberg told Gelernt. “I just don’t think I have the power to do anything about it.”

Boasberg this week found there’s probable cause that the Trump administration committed criminal contempt by disobeying his initial deportation ban. He was concerned that the paper that ICE was giving those held did not make clear they had a right to challenge their removal in court, which he believed the Supreme Court mandated.

Drew Ensign, an attorney for the Justice Department, disagreed, saying that people slated for deportation would have a “minimum” of 24 hours to challenge their removal in court. He said no flights were scheduled for Friday night and he was unaware of any Saturday, but the Department of Homeland Security said it reserved the right to remove people then.

ICE said it would not comment on the litigation.

Also Friday, a Massachusetts judge made permanent his temporary ban on the administration deporting immigrants who have exhausted their appeals to countries other than their home countries unless they are informed of their destination and given a chance to object if they’d face torture or death there.

Some Venezuelans subject to Trump’s Alien Enemies Act have been sent to El Salvador and housed in its notorious main prison.

Budget carrier Avelo Airlines signed an agreement to fly federal deportation flights from Arizona starting in May, according to the company, whose founder acknowledged the decision may be controversial.

Andrew Levy, also CEO of the Houston-based airline, said Avelo is flying for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration Control and Enforcement agency as part of a “long-term charter program” to support the agency’s deportation efforts. The company decided the move would help with expansion and protect jobs, he said.

“We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic,” Levy said in a statement.

The domestic and international flights will be supported by three Boeing 737-800 planes and based at Mesa Gateway Airport Flights, Avelo said in a statement.

In an online job listing for the Arizona operation, Avelo states that the “flights will be both domestic and international trips to support DHS’s deportation efforts.”

Tom Cartwright, a flight data analyst for the advocacy group Witness at the Border, whose social media feeds are closely watched in immigration circles, said he isn’t aware of any other commercial airlines that have provided such flights for ICE in the past five years he’s been tracking flights. He called the decision by Avelo “unusual” considering charter companies the public likely hasn’t heard of typically make these flights.

“They may fly a flight with all migrants or deportation flights today and they might fly fans to the Masters golf tournament tomorrow,” he said of the charters. “They don’t sell tickets in a retail manner like Avelo does.”

In New Haven, Connecticut, where Avelo flies out of Tweed New Haven Airport, Democratic Mayor Justin Elicker said he called Levy over the weekend to express his opposition to the arrangement and urged the CEO to reconsider.

“Avelo Airlines’ decision to charter deportation flights from Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona is deeply disappointing and disturbing. For a company that champions themselves as ‘New Haven’s hometown airline,’ this business decision in antithetical to New Haven’s values,” Elicker said in a statement.

“Travel should be about bringing people together, not tearing families apart,” he added.

A local immigrant advocacy group called the New Haven Immigrants coalition is urging people to sign an online petition pledging to boycott the airline.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — On a day when stock markets around the world dropped precipitously, Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl led a celebration of the president whose global tariffs sparked the sell-off.

With no mention of the Wall Street roller coaster and global economic uncertainty, Wahl declared his state GOP’s “Trump Victory Dinner” — and the broader national moment — a triumph. And for anyone who rejects President Donald Trump, his agenda and the “America First” army that backs it all, Wahl had an offer: “The Alabama Republican Party will buy them a plane ticket to any country in the world they want to go to.”

Wahl’s audience — an assembly of lobbyists and donors, state lawmakers, local party officials and grassroots activists — laughed, applauded and sometimes roared throughout last week’s gala in downtown Birmingham, the rare Democratic stronghold in one of the nation’s most Republican states. The president’s son Donald Trump Jr. elicited perhaps the most enthusiasm with an unapologetically partisan pitch, even repeating the lie that his father won the 2020 election over Democrat Joe Biden.

Yet beyond the cheerleading, there were signs of a more cautious optimism and some worried whispers over Trump’s sweeping tariffs, the particulars of his deportation policy and the aggressive slashing by his Department of Government Efficiency.

That doesn’t mean Trump or Republicans are in danger of losing their grip in Alabama, where the GOP holds all statewide offices, dominates the Legislature and has won every presidential electoral vote since 1980. But it’s a notable wrinkle in a place where there’s long been tension between relying on the federal government for funding and jobs, and an embrace of the kind of anti-Washington, anti-establishment populism that has twice propelled Trump to the Oval Office. And any cracks for Trump in Alabama — where he got 65% of the vote in 2024 — could portend trouble elsewhere, as the effects of a seismic shift in U.S. policy reach across the economy and society.

“There are some concerns, some conversations,” said John Merrill, a former secretary of state, over just what Trump’s agenda will mean on the ground. Alabama, he acknowledged, has “been a net recipient” of the very federal government and economic model Trump is upending, meaning it receives more money back from Washington than its taxpayers send the federal government.

“It’s a big risk,” said Merrill, who sported a Trump 45-47 pin on his lapel, a nod to the president’s two terms.

Blocks to the south of the complex where Republicans convened sits the multibillion-dollar University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, a regional gem where research depends on grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, listed as a “Silver Sponsor” of the gala, didn’t join the Democratic attorneys general suing the Trump administration to stop the cancellation of certain research funding streams Congress already has approved.

Most of the medical services provided at UAB and many other hospitals throughout the state are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, two of the largest federal outlays. Alabama, because its per-capita income ranks among the lower tier among states, has one of the most generous federal match rates for Medicaid funding.

A short drive west toward Tuscaloosa sits a gargantuan Mercedes-Benz complex, one of the earliest examples of foreign auto manufacturers coming to the American South, where state laws are hostile to organized labor. The plants have provided jobs at wages higher than the local norms but in some cases lower than in union shops of the Great Lakes region around Detroit. Many suppliers have followed in the South, but not so many that the assembly plants don’t still import many parts that now will be subject to Trump’s tariffs.

Terry Martin, a county GOP committeeman in Tallapoosa County, said he supports the tariffs as leverage. Trump has “something to bargain with,” Martin said. But, “the parts that are coming from overseas … it’s going to pop it up” in price, he said, at least in the short term.

Agriculture, meanwhile, is still a dominant Alabama industry. Meat processing plants in the North and row crop farms in the South depend on migrant labor that Merrill, the former secretary of state, said involves workers who are in the U.S. both legally and illegally. Alabama, he recalled, passed its own strict immigration bill during Barack Obama’s presidency only to roll it back after industry leaders complained of a depleted workforce.

Wahl, in an interview after the gala, took a more nuanced approach than he did at the podium.

“It is possible to secure our border and still take into account migrants who deserve to be here,” he said. “This has to be a two-pronged approach.”

Back in Birmingham, Interstate 65 splits the city. The aging, increasingly congested artery is a local priority for widening. The proposal has support from Alabama’s two Republican senators, Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt. U.S. interstate projects, though, are typically a 90-10 split, meaning 90% of the money comes from Washington, 10% from the state.

That funding — along with money for schools, Medicaid and other areas — could be at risk with Trump adviser Elon Musk and DOGE carrying Trump’s blessing to slash spending. GOP lawmakers who control Congress have supported Trump’s agenda, which also includes dismantling the Education Department.

Tallapoosa County GOP Chair Denise Bates said “absolutely” there’s a possibility DOGE could go too far. “I hope there are guardrails,” she said, noting she was once a local school board member.

“Am I 100% for getting rid of the Department of Education? I can’t say that I am,” she said, adding a phrase similar to Merrill’s description of the state as a whole. “You know, we’re a net receiver.”

Yet for all the caveats offered in one-on-one conversations, the GOP crowd cheered when Tuberville, the former football coach turned Trump acolyte on Capitol Hill, offered a plainspoken defense of Musk and his pop-up agency, telling the crowd, “We’re dead broke.” And they roared as he addressed tariffs.

“It’s past time we level the playing field and tell the rest of the world to get off their ass and start paying their fair share,” Tuberville said.

Bates argued that Alabama’s embrace of Trump’s “America First” push is not simply loyalty to the president. She said it reflects generations of voters watching the steel industry decline in Birmingham and, after the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted in 1994, the textile industry leaving for Mexico and, eventually, Southeast Asia.

“We just want jobs,” she said.

Still, state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, the longest-serving member of the Alabama Legislature, made clear Trump’s visceral appeal, declaring him “the most popular president here since Ronald Reagan, hands down.”

Wahl recalled Trump’s first massive outdoor rally as a presidential candidate: 30,000 people at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Alabama, in August 2015.

Wahl, who owns a butterfly farm outside Huntsville, said perhaps the best way to understand Trump and Alabama and this moment of uncertainty is to see a president who, at least to his supporters in the state, has earned the benefit of the doubt.

“He’s going to let everybody know he’s serious,” the chairman said. Trump is “going to bring people to the bargaining table. We’re actually going to see the negotiator conduct business.”

Russia said on Monday it was expelling two British diplomats based at the embassy in Moscow over spying allegations.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a statement quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti that the two diplomats had provided false personal data while seeking permission to enter the country and had engaged in alleged intelligence and subversive activities that threatened Russia’s security. It didn’t offer any evidence.

According to the RIA Novosti report, a decision has been made to revoke the diplomats’ accreditations and they have been ordered to leave Russia within two weeks. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a separate statement that it summoned a British embassy official. “Moscow will not tolerate the activities of undeclared British intelligence officers on Russian territory,” it said.

There was no immediate response from the U.K. authorities.

The FSB last year accused seven British diplomats of spying. Six expulsions were announced in September, and one more in November. The U.K. called the moves at the time “baseless.” The expulsions came amid soaring tensions over the war in Ukraine and after London decided to revoke the credentials of an attaché at the Russian Embassy and limit Moscow’s diplomatic activities in Britain.

Last month, London expelled a Russian diplomat in response to the November expulsion.

In May 2024, the U.K. expelled Russia’s defense attaché in London, alleging he was an undeclared intelligence officer, and it closed several Russian diplomatic properties in Britain that it said were being used for spying. Days later Russia reciprocated and expelled Britain’s defense attaché.

Expulsions of diplomats — both Western envoys working in Russia and Russians in the West — have become increasingly common since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In 2023, the Russian news outlet RBC said Western countries and Japan had expelled a total of 670 Russian diplomats between the start of 2022 and October 2023, while Moscow responded by expelling 346 diplomats. According to RBC, that was more than in the previous 20 years combined.

WASHINGTON — Republican senators pushed a $340 billion budget framework to passage early Friday, chugging through an all-night session and Democratic opposition in a step toward unleashing money the Trump administration says it needs for mass deportations and border security that top their agenda.

The hours-long “vote-a-rama” rambled along, in a dreaded, but crucial part of the budget process, as senators considered one amendment after another, largely from Democrats trying to halt it. But Republicans used their majority power to muscle the package to approval on a largely party-line vote, 52-48.

“What we’re doing today is jumpstarting a process that will allow the Republican Party to meet President Trump’s immigration agenda,” Senate Budget Committee chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said while opening the debate.

Graham said President Donald Trump’s top immigration czar, Tom Homan, told senators that the administration’s deportation operations are “out of money” and need more funding from Congress to detain and deport immigrants.

With little power in the minority to stop the onslaught, Democrats instead used the all-night debate to force GOP senators into potentially embarrassing votes — including the first one, on blocking tax breaks to billionaires. It was turned back, on procedural grounds. So were many others.

“This is going to be a long, drawn-out fight,” warned Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

The package is what Republicans view as a down payment on Trump’s agenda, part of a broader effort that will eventually include legislation to extend some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and other priorities. That’s being assembled by House Speaker Mike Johnson in a separate budget package that also seeks up to $2 trillion in reductions to health care and other programs.

Trump has preferred what he calls one “big, beautiful bill,” but the White House is open to the Senate’s strategy of working on the border package first, then turning to tax cuts later this year.

As voting began, the president signaled his go-ahead, posting a thank you to Senate Majority Leader John Thune “and the Republican Senate, for working so hard on funding the Trump Border Agenda.”

The Republican Senate package would allow up to $175 billion to be spent on border security, including money for mass deportation operations and building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, in addition to a $150 billion boost to the Pentagon and about $20 billion for the Coast Guard.

But there won’t be any money flowing just yet, as the process has several steps ahead. The budget resolution is simply a framework that sends instructions to the various Senate committees — Homeland Security, Armed Services, Judiciary — to hammer out the details. Everything will eventually be assembled in another package, with another vote-a-rama down the road.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the No. 2-ranking Senate Republican, said GOP lawmakers are acting quickly to get the administration the resources they have requested and need to curb illegal border crossings.

“The budget will allow us to finish the wall. It also takes the steps we need toward more border agents,” Barrasso said. “It means more detention beds. … It means more deportation flights.”

Republicans insist the whole thing will be paid for, rather than piled onto debt, with potential spending cuts and new revenues.

The committees are expected to consider rolling back the Biden administration’s methane emissions fee, which was approved by Democrats as part of climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act, and hoping to draw new revenue from energy leases as they aim to spur domestic energy production.

One amendment that was accepted after several hours of debate was actually a Republican effort to fend off criticism that the package would be paid for by cutting safety net programs. The amendment from Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said Medicaid and Medicare would be strengthened during the budget process.

First up from Democrats was a vote to prevent tax breaks for billionaires — an amendment that was repeated in various forms throughout the night.

Democrats argue that the GOP tax cuts approved in 2017 flowed to the wealthiest Americans, and extending them as Trump wants Congress to do later this year would prolong the giveaway. Even though the billionaire amendments failed, they picked up some Republican support. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted for several of them, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri voted for another.

Schumer launched a strategy earlier this week to use the budget debate to focus on both the implications of the tax policy and the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is slashing across the federal government.

It’s a better approach for Democrats than arguing against tougher border security and deportations, which divides the party.

All told, senators processed almost three dozen amendments on reversing DOGE cuts, protecting federal workers from being fired, ensuring U.S. support for Ukraine as it battles Russia and others.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the single biggest driver of the national debt since 2001 has been a series of Republican-led tax cuts.

“And you’ll never guess what our Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle are focused on right now, nothing to lower the cost of eggs, it’s actually more Republican tax cuts,” Murray said.

She called the budget plan a “roadmap for painful cuts to programs families count on each and every day, all so they can give billionaires more tax cuts.”

The budget resolution is setting up what’s called the reconciliation process, which used to be rare, but is now the tool often used to pass big bills on party-line votes when one party has control of the White House and Congress, as Republicans do now.

But Republicans are arguing with themselves over how to proceed. The House is marching ahead on its “big, beautiful bill,” believing they have one chance to get it right. The Senate views its two-bill strategy as more practical, delivering on border security first, then turning to taxes later.

Budget rules allow for passage by a simple majority vote, which is key in the Senate, where it typically takes 60 votes to break a filibuster on big items. During Trump’s first term, Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass GOP tax cuts in 2017. Democrats used reconciliation during Joe Biden’s presidency to approve COVID-19 relief and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Trump appears to be stirring the fight, pitting Republicans in the House and Senate against each other to see which one delivers fastest.

___

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The acting head of the federal agency responsible for responding to disasters said Monday that he’s suspending payments sent to New York City to house migrants and that staff who made them will be held accountable, after Elon Musk blasted the transactions on his social media platform.

Musk, who as head of the Department of Government Efficiency has consolidated control over much of the federal government and is working to cut costs and shrink the workforce, posted on X that his team “just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.” He said the money is intended for disaster relief and would be clawed back.

Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, reposted Musk’s comments and said the payments were suspended as of Sunday.

Musk gave no evidence to support his claim, and information from the city of New York indicated that money it’s received to care for migrants was appropriated by Congress and allocated to the city last year by FEMA.

The city hasn’t been notified of any pause in funding, spokeswoman Liz Garcia said. A statement noted that the city has received federal government reimbursements through the past week and said the matter would be discussed directly with federal officials.

Neither Hamilton nor Musk specified what kind of payments were involved. But the comments on X — reposted thousands of times — likely referred to payments made by the Shelter and Services Program, which gives money to reimburse cities, towns or organizations for immigration-related expenses.

FEMA did not respond to questions about the payments. But spokesman Trisha McLaughlin for the Department of Homeland Security — to which FEMA belongs — pointed to recent statements by Secretary Kristi Noem.

“As Secretary Noem said yesterday, we must get rid of FEMA the way it exists today,” McLaughlin told The Associated Press on Monday. “This is yet another egregious example. Individuals who circumvented leadership and unilaterally made this payment will be fired and held accountable.”

When migrants arrive at the border, they’re often released into the U.S. because the federal government doesn’t have enough space to hold them all. Feeding and housing them often falls on local and state governments, as well as nonprofits.

In 2019, with the number of people coming directly to the southern border climbing dramatically, Congress authorized the federal government to reimburse some of those costs. Those were the first such payments and the beginning of the Shelter and Services Program.

The money comes directly from Congress and is specifically for Customs and Border Protection — also part of the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA administers the payments.

The money is separate from the disaster relief fund, which is FEMA’s main funding stream to help people and governments affected by disasters.

The Shelter and Services Program has become a flashpoint for criticism by Republicans, who incorrectly claim it’s taking money from people hit by hurricanes or floods.

Critics also have questioned whether taxpayer money should go to cities and states where right-to-shelter laws mean everyone must be given a place to stay.

At least two other localities that received money through the Shelter and Services Program said they had not heard from the federal government about whether they would take back the money.

Musk called the $59 million his team has identified “gross insubordination to the President’s executive order” and said the funds would be recouped.

It was not clear where the $59 million figure came from, and officials did not provide details to AP.

The New York City mayor’s office said it received $81 million in payments from the federal government for immigration-related costs last week in two separate pieces — one of which was about $59 million, with $19 million for direct hotel costs.

New York City’s right-to-shelter laws require the city to provide shelter to anyone who’s homeless. It has historically housed homeless people in hotels.

City resources have been strained with an influx of roughly 230,000 migrants since the spring of 2022. In addition to housing migrants temporarily in hotels, it also uses tent complexes.

The city says it currently shelters 46,000 migrants, most of whom are part of families.

In another post Monday, Musk said that under the Biden administration, FEMA took money away from disaster relief and “spent it on 5 star hotels for illegals.”

Garcia said the city has never paid luxury rates. The vast majority are outside Manhattan, and the government has paid on average $152 a night for rooms, according to a 2024 city comptroller report. In comparison, 5-star hotels in Manhattan for the coming weekend run from $400 a night to well over $1,000.

The payments of $81 million, Garcia said, covered reimbursements for November 2023 to October 2024, including hotel, security, food, and other costs. She said the city applied in April, the money was appropriated last year by Congress, and FEMA allocated it last year.

The city has millions more in outstanding reimbursements, she said..

The confusion over the payments comes amid intense interest in FEMA’s future.

In a North Carolina trip last month, President Trump said he was considering “getting rid of ” FEMA. He’s also creating a task force to carry out a “full-scale review” on the organization.

Republicans last fall lambasted FEMA, saying it wasn’t doing enough to help survivors hit by double hurricanes Helene and Milton. The agency was also beset by false claims about the storms and withheld aid — often fueled by Trump and others just ahead of the presidential election.

Criticism of FEMA intensified after the agency announced that a staffer was fired after she directed workers not to go to homes with yard signs supporting Trump.

Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate from Virginia, previously worked on emergency management issues for the departments of Homeland Security and State but has limited experience handling natural disasters.

He’s been critical of FEMA on social media and outspoken about increasing security along the southern border, where the agency’s resources could be redirected.

Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term prepared by the president’s allies, called for dismantling Homeland Security and relocating FEMA to the Department of Interior or the Department of Transportation.

It also suggested changing the formula that the agency uses to determine when federal disaster assistance is warranted, shifting the costs of preventing and responding to disasters to states.

__

Attanasio reported from New York.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed laws Friday setting aside $50 million to help the state protect its policies from challenges by the Trump administration and defend immigrants amid the president’s mass-deportation plans.

One of the laws allocates $25 million for the state Department of Justice to fight legal battles against the federal government, and another sets aside $25 million in part for legal groups to defend immigrants facing possible deportation. During his first presidency, Trump sparred with California over climate laws, water policy, immigrant rights and more, and the state filed or joined more than 100 legal actions against the administration. The same fights are reemerging in the early days of Trump’s second term.

“Californians are being threatened by an out-of-control administration that doesn’t care about the Constitution and thinks there are no limits to its power,” said Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, in a statement earlier this week. “That is why we are delivering legislation that will allocate resources to defend Californians from this urgent threat.”

The move comes a day after the Democratic governor returned from Washington, where he met with Trump and members of Congress to try to secure federal disaster aid for the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires that ripped through neighborhoods in January, killing more than two dozen people.

Newsom signed a $2.5 billion package for fire relief into law last month to help fund the state’s disaster response including evacuations, sheltering survivors and removing household hazardous waste. His administration has said they expect the federal government to reimburse the state.

Republican lawmakers have criticized the funding for lawsuits, saying the focus on Trump is distracting as the Los Angeles area recovers from the fires.

“This slush fund isn’t about solving any real problems — it’s a political stunt designed to distract from the urgent issues our state faces and it won’t bode well for fire victims,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said in a statement earlier this week.

Critics have also said the legislation doesn’t ensure that funding wouldn’t be used to defend immigrants without legal status who have been convicted of serious felonies.

After signing the funding into law, Newsom said the money wasn’t intended to be used for that purpose, and he encouraged lawmakers to pass subsequent legislation if clarifying that is needed. He said in a statement that the funding will assist legal groups in “safeguarding the civil rights of California’s most vulnerable residents.”

Newsom announced the plan to safeguard the state’s policies days after Trump’s election in November. He convened the Legislature in a special session to pass the bills.

The state is used to taking the federal government to court over Trump actions.

California sued the Republican president’s administration more than 120 times during his first term, according to the attorney general’s office. The state spent about $42 million overall on legal battles against the federal government, ranging from around $2 million to nearly $13 million a year.

___

Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @ sophieadanna