New list identifies immigration sanctuary school districts across the U.S.

Defending Education has compiled a list of more than 700 school districts from around the country that have passed resolutions or published guidance or district policies for dealing with federal immigration officials and illegal immigrants.

The overwhelming majority of these districts’ policies make the school districts a “sanctuary” or “safe havens.”

Including protocols for district personnel encountering Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on campus.

“School districts are playing a dicey game when they wade into waters that are beyond their charter, especially with something as complicated as the current immigration situation,” said Rhyen Staley, research director at Defending Education, which advocates for removing political indoctrination from schools.

“There have already been cases of bad actors gaining access to schools by using the goodwill and naïveté of school administrators, these policies ensure that more districts put their students and staff at risk by potentially shielding other bad actors from law enforcement.”

More than 700 districts are listed from 33 states and the District of Columbia, with the vast majority coming from California and Washington state.

Defending Education notes that in Washington, many districts have passed Policy 4300, known as “Limiting Immigration Enforcement in Schools,” to address the issue.

Similarly, California’s policy requires school districts to maintain “safe, welcoming environments” regardless of a student’s immigration status.

It also requires school staff to deny ICE officials entry to campus without a valid warrant, court order or subpoena and prohibits the sharing of student records.

School choice gets a boost from federal tax credit scholarships

Education activists took a victory lap at the close of school choice week after eight more states joined a new federal tax credit scholarship initiative.

It brought the total to 27 states set to participate in the program when it starts next year.

The scholarship, part of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill budget and tax-cut law, enables taxpayers to contribute up to $1,700 per year to an eligible nonprofit scholarship-granting organization and get a nonrefundable dollar-for-dollar tax credit.

“We have school choice growing at the state level. Over thirty states with private scholarship programs or education savings accounts—many of them universally eligible,” said Ginny Gentles, a senior fellow with the school-choice advocates at Independent Women’s Education Freedom Center. “Now we can have all fifty states serving students and their educational options and their opportunities.”

Educational organizations award scholarships to K-12 students, and the federal tax credit scholarships, also known as vouchers, can be used towards education expenses such as tuition, books, tutoring and other educational services.

“President Trump is returning education to the states. He’s empowering parents as a driver of their child’s education and he’s giving educators more flexibility,” said Keri D. Ingraham, director of the American Center for Transforming Education.

New tech platform expected to speed up permitting

The National Association of Manufacturers gave a full-throated endorsement of the White House’s new technology platform designed to speed up the environmental permitting process.

The new tech, known as CE Works, was recently launched by the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“Our government must cut the red tape to speed up manufacturers’ ability to put shovels in the ground, and a modern permitting system needs modern technology,” said National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons.

“The White House CEQ’s CE Works pilot program offers a promising path to modernize and accelerate federal environmental reviews — an important step to efficiently implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by quickly helping agencies identify cases where time-consuming reviews are not necessary.”

CE Works provides agencies with a digital pathway to apply categorical exclusions determination, which are decisions by federal agencies that specific categories of actions do not have a significant effect on the human environment.

Agency staff can use the platform to select an appropriate categorical exclusion, collaborate among resource experts within the agency, route the determination for approval and generate a record for publication.

CE Works was created in response to Mr. Trump’s memorandum “Updating Permitting Technology for the 21st Century.”

Suspicions arise about Trump’s Fed chair pick

Mr. Trump’s pick for the next Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, raised concerns among libertarians at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

They worry about Mr. Warsh’s views on Fed independence and a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency, a proposed digital form of the U.S. dollar that would be a direct liability of the Federal Reserve, rather than a commercial bank.

Mr. Trump took an aggressive stance against a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency last year, banning federal agencies from establishing or promoting one because of risks to financial stability and privacy.

“The nomination of Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair warrants concern and scrutiny, as Warsh has repeatedly expressed support for the Fed creating a central bank digital currency,” said John Berlau, CEI’s director of finance policy.

Ryan Young, CEI senior economist, said Mr. Warsh’s nomination “is not reassuring.”

“He would be just one vote out of twelve on interest rates, which limits the damage he could do there,” Mr. Young said. “But his past support for a Central Bank Digital Currency and his wanting the Fed to work more closely with the Treasury Department do not bode well for either the Fed’s independence, or for keeping inflation under control.”

In 2022, Mr. Warsh wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “cryptocurrency” is a misnomer and is largely software, and the U.S. should declare the necessary design features of a digital dollar “to be used exclusively for wholesale transactions.”

“The existing wholesale payment system is slow, cumbersome, opaque and expensive,” he wrote.

• The Advocates column is a weekly look at the political action players who drive the debate and shape policy outcomes in Washington. Send tips to theadvocates@washingtontimes.com.