PSJD News Digest – September 5, 2025

September 5, 2025 at 1:31 pm · Filed under Public Interest Law News Bulletin

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress

Hi Interested Public,

Lots of news this week. The New York Times has reporting on the scope and the demographics of the federal government’s sweeping reductions in force. Meanwhile, some federal agencies have reassigning staff to cover gaps while other agencies are beginning to staff up again. The Skadden Foundation announced it’s new Executive Director, the defender strike in New York City wound down, and the State of Arizona began exploring the possibility of lowering the training requirements for criminal law practitioners for government-employed defenders and prosecutors. Solidarity,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

  • Year Will End With 300,000 Fewer Federal Workers, Trump Official Says (New York Times; 22 Aug 2025)

    “That amounts to the loss of about one in eight federal civilian workers, and would be the largest single-year reduction since World War II. …The figure is the clearest picture yet from the federal government of the extent of Mr. Trump’s downsizing. The president has said the effort is about eliminating waste, saving money and making the government run more efficiently. But it also represents a reduction of a bureaucracy that he believes has tried to thwart him. Many federal employees say the depth of the cuts has threatened to cripple vital services, drained the government of expertise and wreaked havoc on workers and their families.”

    • In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit (New York Times; 31 Aug 2025)

      “While tens of thousands of employees have lost their jobs in Mr. Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to shrinking the federal work force, experts say the cuts disproportionately affect Black employees — and Black women in particular. Black women make up 12 percent of the federal work force, nearly double their share of the labor force overall.

      …The most recent labor statistics show that nationwide, Black women lost 319,000 jobs in the public and private sectors between February and July of this year, the only major female demographic to experience significant job losses during this five-month period, according to an analysis by Katica Roy, a gender economist…Experts attribute those job losses, in large part, to Mr. Trump’s cuts to federal agencies where Black women are highly concentrated.

      White women saw a job increase of 142,000, and Hispanic women of 176,000, over the same time period. White men saw the largest increase among groups, 365,000, over the same time period.

      Ms. Roy said that with the exception of the pandemic, Black women have never seen such staggering losses in employment. And over the last decade, the experiences of that population have consistently signaled what is to come for others.”

  • The Trump administration is moving staff into jobs they know nothing about (Washington Post; 4 Sept 2025)

    “Many staffers have been moved from civil rights jobs, workers say. At the Justice Department, for example, attorneys who protected employees from workplace discrimination were moved to roles handling human resources complaints or Freedom of Information Act requests. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, civil rights lawyers who pursued cases of housing discrimination were shifted to defend the agency from complaints. At the Transportation Department, an employee who spent a decade working in civil rights is now reviewing highway grants.”

  • Defense Dept. to send up to 600 military attorneys to serve as temporary immigration judges (CBS News; 4 Sept 2025)

    “The immigration courts are struggling with a backlog of more than 3.4 million cases. But the plan to turn possibly hundreds of military lawyers into immigration judges comes after the Trump administration has fired more than two dozen immigration judges nationwide so far this year. Unlike federal district court judges, immigration judges work for the Justice Department…The Trump administration loosened the job requirements for temporary immigration judges last month, allowing a wider group of government lawyers to handle cases in immigration court.”

    • The Military Has Officially Entered the Deportation Business (The Nation; 4 Sept 2025)

      “fThe order, approved by Secretary of Gender Binaries Pete Hegseth, is yet another violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is supposed to prevent the president from using the military to engage in domestic law enforcement…Immigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice, hired by the attorney general, who has broad discretion over whom they hire and why.”

Federal RIFs & Grant Cancellations

Non-Federal Funding

Civil Society

Student Debt & Other Student Concerns

Conflicts Over Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

Access to Justice

  • Cook County Public Defender anticipating surge in immigration detention cases (CBS News; 4 Sept 2025)

    “With an enforcement blitz by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement anticipated in the coming days, more people could be in immigration custody are in need of legal help. Now, they could possibly get that help from the Cook County Public Defender's office. The Public Defender's office is known for representing people accused of crimes in Cook County. But after a pilot program that started in 2020, public defenders are now being used to represent people with Cook County addresses who are being detained for immigration cases.”