Trump Administration Civil and Human Rights Rollbacks
"he's an absolute jerk. I still can't believe we elected him at one point. Even if he's convicted in this current trial nobody is going to have the intestinal fortitude to throw his sorry ass into a jail where he belongs.. He wrecked our whole nation by throwing normal political discourse out of the window and rebirthing the latent racism and hatred that was pushed into the background before. P - It's a sad state of affairs when people have their basic human rights stripped from them by a minority of the electorate.. "
Since Trump took office in January 2017, his administration worked aggressively to turn back the clock on our nation’s civil and human rights progress. Here’s how.
2017
On January 27, Trump signed an executive order – the first version of his Muslim ban – that discriminated against Muslims and banned refugees.
On January 31, under new Chairman Ajit Pai’s leadership, the Federal Communications Commission refused to defend critical components of its prison phone rate rules in federal court – rules that were ultimately struck down in June.
On February 3, Trump signed an executive order outlining principles for regulating the U.S. financial system and calling for a 120-day review of existing laws, like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The order was viewed as Trump’s opening attack on consumer protection laws.
On February 3, the FCC rescinded its 2014 Joint Sales Agreement (JSA) guidance, which had led to the only increase in television diversity in recent years.
On February 3, FCC Chairman Pai revoked the Lifeline Broadband Provider (LBP) designations for nine broadband service providers, reducing the number of providers offering broadband and thus decreasing the competitive forces available to drive down prices.
On February 7, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.J. Res. 57, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn a Department of Education accountability rule that clarifies states’ obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes this resolution.
On February 9, Trump signed three executive orders “to fight crime, gangs, and drugs; restore law and order; and support the dedicated men and women of law enforcement.” The orders, though vague, were viewed suspiciously by civil rights organizations.
On February 10, Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington wrote to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos after the centralized resource website for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) became inaccessible to the public for more than a week. On February 17, DeVos issued a statement blaming the previous administration for neglecting the site.
On February 21, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo updating immigration enforcement guidance, massively expanding the number of people subject to detention and deportation. The guidance drastically increased the use of expedited removal and essentially eliminated the priorities for deportation.
On February 22, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights jointly rescinded Title IX guidance clarifying protections under the law for transgender students.
On February 23, Attorney General Sessions withdrew an earlier Justice Department memo that set a goal of reducing and ultimately ending the department’s use of private prisons.
On February 27, the Department of Justice dropped the federal government’s longstanding position that a Texas voter ID law under legal challenge was intentionally racially discriminatory, despite having successfully advanced that argument in multiple federal courts. The district court subsequently rejected the position of the Sessions Justice Department and concluded the law was passed with discriminatory intent.
On March 6, the Department of Justice withdrew its motion for a preliminary injunction against North Carolina’s anti-transgender HB 2 law.
On March 6, Trump signed a revised executive order restricting travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen and drastically cutting back refugee admissions.
On March 6, a week after Trump called on lawmakers to repeal the Affordable Care Act during his address to Congress, House Republicans released a proposal to replace the ACA with a law that would end the Medicaid program as we know it and defund Planned Parenthood.
On March 6, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed ending the collection of data on LGBTQ individuals with disabilities, removing questions on LGBTQ demographics from the Centers for Independent Living Annual Program Performance Report survey.
On March 10, the Department of Housing and Urban Development withdrew a survey proposed in the Federal Register meant to assess the efficacy and replicability of HUD-funded programs to address LGBTQ youth homelessness. According to its own data, 40 percent of young people experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQ, so ensuring that its programs are adequately meeting the needs of young LGBTQ people is critical to HUD meeting its own mission. After significant public outcry, the assessment survey was eventually reinstated.
On March 13, the Department of Health and Human Services released a draft of the annual National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants, which gathers data on people who receive services funded through the Older Americans Act. HHS’s draft collection instrument omitted the questions on sexual orientation and gender identity asked on the previous year’s survey. After receiving nearly 14,000 comments on the data collection proposal and after facing bipartisan opposition from Congress, HHS restored the question on sexual orientation but omitted a question that yielded information on gender identity.
On March 16, the Trump administration released a budget blueprint that proposed a $54 billion increase in military spending that would come from $54 billion in direct cuts to non-defense programs. The blueprint also proposed spending $4.1 billion through 2018 on the beginnings of construction of a wall through communities on the U.S.-Mexico border.
On March 17, the Department of Housing and Urban Development removed links to four key resource documents from its website, which informed emergency shelters on best practices for serving transgender people facing homelessness and complying with HUD regulations.
On March 22, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 1628, the American Health Care Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes. The White House issued a statement supporting the Senate’s motion to proceed to this legislation on July 24.
On March 27, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed a Department of Education accountability rule finalized last year that would clarify states’ obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
On March 27, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order. The order, signed by President Obama, represented a much-needed step forward in ensuring that the federal contractor community is providing safe and fair workplaces for employees by encouraging compliance with federal labor and civil rights laws, and prohibiting the use of mandatory arbitration of certain disputes.
On March 29, the U.S. Census Bureau asserted that there was “no federal data need” to justify the collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data in the American Community Survey (ACS). The bureau’s original submission to Congress included a table suggesting that it planned to collect data on sexual orientation and gender identity in the ACS starting in the next iteration of the survey – but by the end of the day, the bureau hastily removed any reference to these topics in a revised submission. During the Obama administration, at least four federal agencies asked the bureau to add these questions.
On March 29, The Washington Post reported that the Department of Education decided to terminate the Opening Doors, Expanding Opportunity grant program, which helps local districts devise ways to boost socioeconomic diversity within their schools.
In a March 31 memo, Sessions ordered a sweeping review of consent decrees with law enforcement agencies relating to police conduct – a crucial tool in the Justice Department’s efforts to ensure constitutional and accountable policing. The department also tried, unsuccessfully, to block a federal court in Baltimore from approving a consent decree between the city and the Baltimore Police Department to rein in discriminatory police practices that the department itself had negotiated over a multi-year period.
On April 3, Attorney General Jeff Sessions tried to back out of a consent decree to address civil rights violations by the Baltimore Police Department.
On April 11, the administration proposed removing a question from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) regarding preschool suspension and expulsion. Without access to valid and reliable data, parents, advocates, educators, service providers, researchers, policymakers, and the public will not have the information they need to ensure early childhood settings are developmentally appropriate and nondiscriminatory.
On April 13, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which overturned the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ final rule updating the regulations governing the Title X family planning program – a vital source of family planning and related preventive care for low-income, uninsured, and young people across the country.
On April 14, the Department of Justice voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s anti-transgender HB 2 after the law was modified – although private challenges continued.
On April 26, Trump released an outline of a tax reform plan that was viewed largely as a tax giveaway for the wealthy and big corporations.
On April 26, Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to conduct a study on the federal government’s role in education.
On May 2, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 1180, the Working Families Flexibility Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.
On May 4, Trump signed an executive order that he claimed overturned the Johnson Amendment (though it did not), which precludes tax-exempt organizations, including places of worship, from engaging in any political campaign activity and would curtail the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act.
On May 10, Sessions announced in a two-page memo that DOJ was abandoning its Smart on Crime initiative that had been hailed as a positive step forward in rehabilitating drug users and reducing the enormous costs of warehousing inmates.
On May 11, Trump signed an executive order creating the so-called Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity headed by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has a history of trying to suppress the vote in Kansas.
On May 23, Trump released his fiscal year 2018 budget that included massive, unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, which would be paid for by slashing basic living standards for the most vulnerable and by attacking critical programs like Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicaid, food assistance, and more.
On May 23, Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposed eliminating the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and transferring its functions to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). This would have impeded the work of both the OFCCP and the EEOC as each have distinct missions and expertise, and would have thereby undermined the civil rights protections that employers and workers have relied on for almost 50 years.
On June 5, Trump released an infrastructure plan that focuses on putting public assets into private hands, creating another giveaway to wealthy corporations and millionaires at the expense of working families and communities.
On June 6, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued unclear new instructions on transgender student discrimination.
On June 8, OCR’s acting head sent a memo to OCR staff discouraging systemic investigations in favor of individual investigations of discrimination.
On June 14, DeVos decided to delay implementation of and to renegotiate the Borrower Defense to Repayment and Gainful Employment regulations – important regulations that had been designed to protect students from predatory conduct by for-profit schools.
On June 14, the Department of Education withdrew, without explanation, a 2016 finding that an Ohio school district discriminated against a transgender girl.
On June 15, the administration rescinded President Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, an initiative that – had it gone into effect – would have offered a pathway to citizenship for immigrant parents with children who are citizens or residents of the United States.
On June 27, Labor Secretary Acosta requested information on the Obama-era overtime rule, signaling his intent to lower the salary threshold of the overtime rule.
On June 27, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 3003, the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.
On June 27, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 3004, Kate’s Law, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.
On June 28, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to 44 states demanding extensive information on how they maintain their voter rolls. This request was made on the same day that President Trump’s so-called Commission on Election Integrity sent letters to all 50 states demanding intrusive and highly sensitive personal data about all registered voters.
On July 24, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.J. Res 111, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rule on forced arbitration clauses. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes the resolution. The White House issued a statement on October 24 opposing the Senate companion resolution.
[...]
2020
On January 3, the Trump administration filed a brief in June Medical Services v. Gee, urging the Court to allow a Louisiana abortion access law to go into effect. The civil rights community filed briefs urging the Court to strike down the restrictive law, highlighting the law’s impact on Black women.
On January 7, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a proposal that would gut the agency’s 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. HUD’s proposal would leave people of color, women, and other protected communities already harmed by unfair and unequal housing policies at a further disadvantage.
On January 13, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration would divert $7.2 billion of funding from the Pentagon to fund the president’s harmful and wasteful wall along the southern border.
On January 13 (and subsequently on February 11 for the Senate companion resolution), the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.J. Res 76, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s borrower defense rule. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports this resolution.
On January 13, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 1230, the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.
On January 16, nine federal agencies issued proposed rules eliminating the rights of people receiving help from federal programs to (i) request a referral if they have a concern or problem with a faith-based provider and (ii) receive written notice of their rights. The changes would encourage agencies to claim broader religious exemptions to deny help to certain people while receiving federal funds.
On January 23, the Department of State announced a new regulation aimed at denying pregnant people visas to prevent them from traveling to the United States. The regulation represents an attack against pregnant people living in countries without access to the Visa Waiver Program and immigrant women, particularly those of color, and with low incomes.
On January 30, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released block grant guidance to allow states to cap Medicaid spending – essentially putting forward the notion that we should ration health care for the most vulnerable people in our nation.
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