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Year: 2025

Trump administration to weigh US citizenship applicants’ ‘positive contributions,’ good moral character

Trump administration to weigh US citizenship applicants’ ‘positive contributions,’ good moral character

Officers with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) must consider the “positive contributions” of immigrants applying to become U.S. citizens as part of a more “holistic” approach, according to an agency memo.  The new policy directs USCIS officers to account for an applicant’s positive attributes, rather than simply the absence of misconduct.  “Becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen means being an active and responsible member of society instead of just having a right to live and work in the United States,” the Aug. 15 memo states. “Among other eligibility factors, aliens applying for naturalization must demonstrate that he or she has been and continues to be an individual of good moral character (GMC). TRUMP IS TARGETING NONVIOLENT AND LEGAL IMMIGRANTS. AMERICANS ARE STARTING TO NOTICE “Evaluating GMC involves more than a cursory mechanical review focused on the absence of wrongdoing,” the memo continues. “It entails a holistic assessment of an alien’s behavior, adherence to societal norms, and positive contributions that affirmatively demonstrate good moral character.” Applicants with convictions for serious violent crimes have long been barred from obtaining U.S. citizenship. Friday’s memo expands the list of offenses to include drug use or two or more convictions for driving under the influence. Officers are also encouraged to consider conduct that may not be illegal but considered inconsistent with civic responsibility within the community, including “reckless or habitual traffic infractions, or harassment or aggressive solicitation.” “U.S. citizenship is the gold standard of citizenship — it should only be offered to the world’s best of the best,” USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser told Fox News Digital. “USCIS is adding a new element to the naturalization process that ensures America’s newest citizens not only embrace America’s culture, history, and language but who also demonstrate good moral character. TOP DHS OFFICIAL CALLS CITIZENSHIP TEST ‘TOO SOFT,’ URGES MAJOR OVERHAUL OF NATURALIZATION PROCESS “This memo ensures that USCIS officers are accounting for an alien’s positive contributions to American society —including community involvement, achievements and financial responsibility rather than the absence of their misconduct,” he added. “USCIS will continue to restore integrity in the nation’s immigration system — especially when it comes to the prestigious privilege of citizenship.” The memo also encourages the officers to look at other factors, such as whether applicants are involved in their communities, including family caregiving or raising a family, their ties to the United States, educational attainment, stable and lawful employment history, career achievements and paying taxes. “GMC findings must go beyond the absence of disqualifying acts, it must reflect a genuine positive assessment of who the alien is and how they have lived in their community,” the memo states. The White House referred questions from Fox News Digital about the USCIS policy to the agency.  Immigrants seeking to attain U.S. citizenship must already live in the country for several years and pass a civics test in English, among other requirements. 

GOP doctors call out health task force for ‘woke distractions’ amid major reform push

GOP doctors call out health task force for ‘woke distractions’ amid major reform push

EXCLUSIVE: The GOP Doctors Caucus is backing a possible effort to overhaul the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, or USPSTF, an independent task force that’s used to determine recommendations on what services health insurance companies in the United States have to cover free of charge. A letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., led by Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn., and Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., and other members of the caucus expressed concerns that the group may be prioritizing social justice issues over other issues. “Preventive care should be about keeping Americans healthy, not about checking political boxes,” Harshbarger said in a statement.  “The American people deserve a task force that follows the science, acts with urgency and relies on the expertise of front-line doctors. The USPSTF should be leading the charge in President Trump’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda, not wasting time on woke distractions while chronic disease rates keep climbing.” REPUBLICAN SENATOR CLAIMS RFK JR. MRNA VACCINE DECISION UNDERMINES TRUMP AGENDA Specifically, the letter asks for “relevant specialists” to be part of the process when making certain recommendations, greater transparency in decision-making and more of a focus on outcomes as opposed to “substantial attention to divisive social issues,” citing “race and gender identity considerations that extend beyond traditional clinical parameters,” according to a news release. “In 2010, the Affordable Care Act expanded the authority of the USPSTF and tied coverage recommendations to Task Force determinations. However, since the USPSTF’s authority was expanded, the rate of incidence of preventable chronic disease in the United States has only climbed,” the letter states. The letter was also signed by other members of the caucus, including Reps. Andy Harris, Ronny Jackson, Mike Kennedy, Brian Babin, Sheri Biggs and Bob Onder. GOP SENATORS RALLY AROUND EFFORT TO END ‘RADICAL WOKENESS’ IN HHS TASK FORCE Earlier this month, three Republican senators wrote a similar letter raising ideological concerns about the current task force. “In particular, the USPSTF departed from its proper activities in its December 2023 Health Equity Framework. The framework criticizes ‘equal access to quality health care for all’ as an inadequate goal of public health and announces that the Task Force will instead use equity as ‘a criterion of the ‘public health importance’ of a topic’ for consideration,” that letter stated. The Wall Street Journal reported that, in July, Kennedy was considering removing members of the board. DEMS ‘DELIBERATELY OBFUSCATING’ TRUTH ABOUT ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ WITH THIS CLAIM: WATCHDOG “No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS’ mandate to Make America Healthy Again,” an HHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement when asked about the WSJ report at the time. The American Medical Association has opposed an overhaul of the task force. “USPSTF plays a critical, nonpartisan role in guiding physicians’ efforts to prevent disease and improve the health of patients by helping to ensure access to evidence-based clinical preventive services. As such, we urge you to retain the previously appointed members of the USPSTF and commit to the long-standing process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can continue without interruption,” the AMA wrote. Meanwhile, a group of physicians, including those from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, America’s Frontline Doctors and the Pennsylvania Direct Primary Care Association, signed another letter in support of possible changes. The signers wrote that new members should have an “ideological balance to develop recommendations based on facts and science.” Fox News Digital reached out to HHS for an updated comment.

WATCH: Footage shows blue state prosecutor warning officers they’ll ‘regret’ arresting her: ‘I’m an AG!’

WATCH: Footage shows blue state prosecutor warning officers they’ll ‘regret’ arresting her: ‘I’m an AG!’

Bodycam footage from the Newport Police Department in Newport, Rhode Island, shows Special Assistant Attorney General Devon Flanagan pleading with officers not to arrest her and appearing to try to use her job as a state prosecutor to get officers to let her go. “I’m an AG! I’m an AG!” Flanagan can be heard saying to police as they tried to detain her for failing to comply with their demands. “You’re going to regret this. You’re going to regret it. I’m an A-” Flanagan said as she was escorted to the back of a police car and the door was shut. “Good for you, I don’t give a s—,” one of the arresting officers can be heard saying back at one point. FEMALE POLICE OFFICER LEAPS INTO WATER, FIGHTS CAREER CRIMINAL BEFORE MAKING ARREST, VIDEO SHOWS The Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office indicated Monday that they were reviewing the matter involving Flanagan, but did not indicate whether any disciplinary measures have been taken. Throughout the video, Flanagan can also be heard telling the officers how to do their job.   “I want you to turn your body-camera off. Protocol is that you turn it off. It’s a citizen request to turn it off,” Flanagan told the officer when he approached her to ask her to leave. “She knows, she’s a lawyer,” a separate female who was with Flanagan told the officer. “She’s a f—ing lawyer.”  EX-TRUMP PROSECUTOR JACK SMITH UNDER INVESTIGATION BY GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG OFFICE OF SPECIAL COUNSEL “On the evening of Aug. 14, the Office of the Attorney General learned that members of the Newport Police Department arrested Special Assistant Attorney General Devon Flanagan for trespassing,” Megan Skinner, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, said Friday, according to The Boston Globe. Meanwhile, a separate spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital that the attorney general’s office was “reviewing the matter” of Flanagan’s arrest. “The Office immediately began a review of the incident, which we anticipate will conclude within the next few days,” the attorney general’s spokesperson added in their statement to The Boston Globe. “At this time, we are unable to comment further on this matter as it relates to personnel issues.” Flanagan has reportedly worked in the attorney general’s office for seven years and works on appeals cases in criminal court. She was ultimately charged with willful trespass and issued a summons to appear in court. In addition to Flanagan’s arrest, the other female in the video, seen yelling at officers and escaping from their handcuffs at one point, was also arrested, according to the Globe. That individual, identified as Veronica Hannan, was reportedly charged with willful trespass, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.  

Justice Barrett teases new memoir in abrupt conference exit

Justice Barrett teases new memoir in abrupt conference exit

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett knows how to command an audience.  This was crystallized Monday night at the Swissôtel in Chicago, where she spoke for just three minutes to several hundred judges and legal professionals gathered for the Seventh Circuit Judicial Conference. Her remarks, though short, were optimistic and warm. She urged the courts to keep their sense of “camaraderie and professionalism” despite inevitable, sharp disagreements. This, she said, is “what enables the judicial system to work well.”  Barrett smiled fondly as she remembered her time on the 7th Circuit, where she served for several years prior to her nomination to the Supreme Court. She introduced the next speaker, who took the stage to another standing ovation. And just as quickly as she entered the packed ballroom, she was gone. BARRETT EVISCERATES JACKSON, SOTOMAYOR TAKES ON A ‘COMPLICIT’ COURT IN CONTENTIOUS FINAL OPINIONS “Barrett, 53, is the youngest justice on the bench, and her nearly five-year record on the Supreme Court has been the subject of furious speculation — and, at times, outright fury.” Conservatives have panned her record as more moderate than that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she once clerked. Liberals have been incensed by her reluctance to side more consistently with the court’s left-leaning justices on abortion, federal powers and other seminal cases. Barrett’s voting record is more moderate than Scalia’s, according to a June New York Times data analysis that found she plays an “increasingly central role” on the court. Barrett used her time Monday to implore the group of judges to maintain a sense of grace, decorum and respect for colleagues, despite the inevitable, heated disagreements that will occur. The warm, if somewhat lofty, sense of idealism on display is one that is expected to be echoed further in her forthcoming memoir, “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution,” slated for publication next month.  The theme of Monday’s remarks, to the extent there was one, stressed working toward common goals, accepting ideological differences and embracing disagreement while keeping a broader perspective — a point echoed by Barrett and earlier speakers who cited David Brooks repeatedly in praising purpose-driven public service. The upside of so many hours spent in disagreement, Barrett said, is learning how to strike that balance. “We know how to argue well,” she said. “We also know how to argue without letting it consume relationships.” CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS SOUNDS ALARM ON DANGEROUS RHETORIC AIMED AT JUDGES FROM POLITICIANS This has been especially true during Trump’s second term, as the Supreme Court presided over a record blitz of emergency appeals and orders filed by the administration and other aggrieved parties in response to the hundreds of executive orders signed in his first months in office. The high court has ruled in Trump’s favor in the majority of emergency applications, allowing the administration to proceed with its ban on transgender service members in the military, its termination of millions of dollars in Education Department grants and its firing of probationary employees across the federal government, among many other actions. Even so, it is Barrett who has emerged as the most-talked-about justice on the high court this term, confounding and frustrating observers as they tried and failed to predict how she would vote. She’s been hailed as the “most interesting justice on the bench,” a “trailblazer” and an iconoclast, among other descriptions.  On Monday, she stressed that the commonalities among judges, both for the 7th Circuit and beyond, are far greater than the issues that divide them.  As for her own work, Barrett offered few details — her remarks began and ended in less time than it takes to microwave a burrito. It’s unclear if, or to what extent, Barrett’s schedule may have changed at the eleventh hour, a reflection of the many demands placed on sitting Supreme Court justices whose schedules are often subject to change or cancellation at a moment’s notice. The 7th Circuit did not immediately respond to Fox News’s questions as to what, if anything, had changed on Barrett’s end.  Questions swirled as she exited. Had she planned longer remarks? Was the agenda misread? Or is she saving details for her memoir and looming book tour as one reporter suggested? Her appearance, full of irony, left observers with more questions than answers. Whether she addresses them in the weeks ahead remains to be seen.

Schiff launches legal defense fund in response to claims Trump is ‘weaponizing’ justice system

Schiff launches legal defense fund in response to claims Trump is ‘weaponizing’ justice system

Sen. Adam Schiff launched a legal defense fund as the California Democrat faces a federal investigation for alleged mortgage fraud and President Donald Trump repeatedly condemns him for years of allegedly promoting the “Russiagate” hoax.  “It’s clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable,” a spokeswoman for Schiff told Fox News Digital on Tuesday evening. “This fund will ensure he can fight back against these baseless smears while continuing to do his job.” The legal fund, dubbed “Senator Schiff Legal Defense Fund,” was filed with the Internal Revenue Service Thursday, according to the New York Times.  Trump and Schiff have long been political foes, stretching back to the president’s first administration, when Schiff — who was serving in the U.S. House at the time — oversaw the first impeachment trial against Trump in 2020 for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and for repeatedly promoting the narrative that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.  SEN ADAM SCHIFF UNDER FEDERAL CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION FOR ALLEGED MORTGAGE FRAUD VIOLATIONS “Russia, Russia, Russia. Totally phony, created by Adam Schiff, Shifty Schiff, and Hillary Clinton and the whole group of them,” Trump said from the Kennedy Center Wednesday.  Trump was referring to recently declassified documents alleging the Obama administration “manufactured and politicized intelligence” to create the narrative that Russia was attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, despite information from the intelligence community stating otherwise.  “It made it very dangerous for our country because I was unable to really deal with Russia the way we should have been,” Trump continued from the Kennedy Center, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi. “And I’m looking at Pam because I hope something’s going to be done about it.”  White House spokesman Harrison Fields called Schiff a “fraud” and “corrupt politician” when approached for comment on Tuesday regarding the legal fund.   “Adam Schiff is a sleazy and corrupt politician who betrayed his oath to the Constitution by prioritizing his selfish and personal animosity toward the President over the interests of the American people. No amount of money can shield Adam from the truth that he is a fraud,” Fields told Fox News Digital.  Schiff also came under fire earlier in August when documents released to Congress by FBI Director Kash Patel reported that a Democratic whistleblower who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than 10 years told the FBI in 2017 that Schiff allegedly approved leaking classified information on Trump that “would be used to indict President TRUMP.” Schiff denied the allegations as “absolutely and categorically false.” Schiff notably served on the Jan. 6 committee, which investigated the day in January 2021 when Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, and was among lawmakers who were granted preemptive pardons on President Joe Biden’s final day in office in 2025.  HOW TRUMP’S ‘NO SHRINKING VIOLETS’ DOJ IS DIGGING IN ON SCHIFF’S MORTGAGE DEALINGS AS LEGAL PERIL LOOMS Schiff, however, had publicly condemned the prospect of Biden doling out preemptive pardons as “unnecessary” and setting a bad precedent.  “First, those of us on the committee are very proud of the work we did. We were doing vital quintessential oversight of a violent attack on the Capitol,” Schiff said during a media interview in December 2024. “So I think it’s unnecessary.” “But second, the precedent of giving blanket pardons, preemptive blanket pardons on the way out of an administration, I think is a precedent we don’t want to set,” he added. TRUMP INVOKES RUSSIA COLLUSION HOAX WHILE CALLING FOR LONGTIME FOE SCHIFF TO FACE JAIL TIME The California Democrat also is facing a federal investigation for mortgage fraud, Fox Digital previously reported. Schiff has denied any wrongdoing, claiming the matter is a “baseless attempt at political retribution.” The U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice in May claiming that in “multiple instances,” Schiff allegedly “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, impacting payments from 2003-2019 for a Potomac, Maryland-based property.” Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.