Trump budget draft ends Narcan program and other addiction measures.

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Trump Administration Live Updates: U.S. Restores Legal Status for Many International Students, but Warns of More Removals

A large concrete building that says Department of Justice. Justice Department lawyers said that immigration officials had begun work on a new system for reviewing and terminating student visas.Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

Where Things Stand

  • Student visas: The Trump administration on Friday abruptly moved to restore thousands of international students’ ability to study in the United States legally, but immigration officials insisted they would still try to terminate that legal status despite a wave of legal challenges. Read more ›

  • F.B.I. arrests judge: F.B.I. agents arrested a county judge in Milwaukee and charged her with helping an immigrant evade federal authorities. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed that the judge, Hannah Dugan, had been arrested — a major escalation of the Trump administration’s fight with local officials over deportations. She was released after a brief appearance in a nearby federal court on Friday. Read more ›

  • Trump and China: China’s foreign ministry rejected statements by President Trump that the countries were engaged in talks about his new tariffs, saying the United States “should stop creating confusion.” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Time magazine that President Xi Jinping of China had called him to discuss tariffs, and at the White House he declined to describe the timing of the calls but said they had spoken “numerous times.” Read more ›

Chris Cameron

Reporting from Washington

Judge blocks Trump order ending union protections for federal workers.

President Trump framed his order stripping workers of labor protections as critical to protect national security.Eric Lee/The New York Times

A federal judge in Washington blocked President Trump from ending collective bargaining with unions representing federal workers, stymying a component of Mr. Trump’s sweeping effort to strip civil servants of job protections and assert more control over the federal bureaucracy.

Judge Paul L. Friedman of the Federal District Court in Washington ruled in favor of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents tens of thousands of federal workers across the government. Without including an opinion explaining his decision, Judge Friedman ruled that the executive order from Mr. Trump was unlawful, and he granted a temporary injunction blocking its implementation while the case proceeded.

“An opinion explaining the court’s reasoning will be issued within the next few days,” Judge Friedman wrote in the two-page order.

The order, if implemented, would strip collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers, effectively banning them from joining unions.

Those unions have been a major obstacle in Mr. Trump’s effort to slash the size of the federal work force and reshape the government. With every stroke of the pen from Mr. Trump enacting new orders aimed at tightening control over the federal bureaucracy, federal worker unions have responded with lawsuits, winning at least temporary reprieves for some fired federal workers and blocking efforts to dismantle portions of the government.

Mr. Trump had framed his order stripping workers of labor protections as critical to protect national security. But the union noted that it targeted agencies across the government, some of which had no obvious national security portfolio, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The administration’s own issuances show that the president’s exclusions are not based on national security concerns,” the suit said, “but, instead, a policy objective of making federal employees easier to fire and political animus against federal sector unions.”

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President Trump said in a social media post that Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” after a day of discussions about bringing the war to an end. “Most of the major points are agreed to,” he wrote on Truth Social after landing in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral. Trump encouraged both sides to “finish it off,” adding, “We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!”

Devlin BarrettGlenn Thrush

Devlin Barrett and

Trump administration says it can once again seek reporters’ phone records, and compel their testimony.

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo saying that the new policy was necessary to safeguard “classified, privileged and other sensitive information.”Eric Lee/The New York Times

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday said that federal authorities may once again seek reporters’ phone records and compel their testimony in leak investigations, reversing a Biden administration policy meant to protect journalism from intrusive efforts to identify and prosecute leakers.

An internal Justice Department memo from Ms. Bondi said that the change was necessary to safeguard “classified, privileged and other sensitive information” — a far broader set of government secrets than is protected by the criminal code, which focuses primarily on making it illegal to share classified information.

From his first days in the White House in 2017, President Trump has complained bitterly about leaks of all kinds. Mr. Trump himself faced criminal indictment for allegedly mishandling classified information after he left the White House, in a case that was ultimately dismissed.

Given Mr. Trump’s confrontational approach to the press, First Amendment advocates have long expected his administration to rescind Biden-era protections for journalists. But the vague phrasing of the new memo at times appeared to call for more than simply restoring past policy.

The Bondi memo said federal prosecutors “will continue to employ procedural protections to limit the use of compulsory legal process to obtain information from or records of members of the news media.” In the past, such protections have included requiring senior-level Justice Department approvals before seeking court orders for such information. The memo did not describe the protections.

The Justice Department, Ms. Bondi wrote, “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.” Even if the Trump administration were to pursue leak investigations beyond the traditional ambit of classified information in order to get a warrant, prosecutors would still have to convince judges that a crime might have been committed.

Bruce D. Brown, the president of the advocacy group Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that some of the most important reporting in U.S. history had come from reporters using confidential sources.

“Strong protections for journalists serve the American public by safeguarding the free flow of information,” he said.

The Justice Department has typically shied away from prosecuting journalists for merely possessing classified information. When prosecutors have sought reporters’ data, it has nearly always been part of an effort to identify and prosecute the person who gave the reporters the information. But the main criminal statute that governs such cases dates back to World War I, and is broadly worded.

The Bondi memo says that Justice Department officials, when deciding whether to use court orders aimed at journalists, will consider whether there are “reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has occurred and the information sought is essential to a successful prosecution,” and whether prosecutors have made all other reasonable attempts to get the information.

Prosecutors must also consider whether “absent a threat to national security, the integrity of the investigation or bodily harm,” the government has pursued negotiations with the journalist in question.

Chris Cameron

Reporting from Washington

A federal judge in Washington blocked President Trump from ending collective bargaining with unions representing federal workers, which was part of his widespread effort to strip civil servants of work protections and assert more control over the federal bureaucracy.

Without including an opinion explaining his decision, Judge Paul L. Friedman of the Federal District Court in Washington ruled in favor of unions who had sued to block the order, granting a temporary injunction while the case proceeds.

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Federal workers fired from U.S.A.I.D. will not need to return their government phones and computers.

The logo for U.S.A.I.D. was covered over at the agency’s headquarters in Washington in February. The majority of its workers were fired that month.Jason Andrew for The New York Times

Staff members being fired from the federal agency responsible for distributing foreign aid will be able to keep their government-issued electronic devices when it closes its doors this summer, according to an internal email, copies of which were shared with The New York Times.

In the email, sent to employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Trump administration officials said that iPhones, iPads and laptops would “be remotely wiped and marked as disposed.” The directive, the email stated, was adopted “to simplify processes and to reduce burden” of terminating the thousands of direct hires and consultants who worked for the agency before it was slated to be closed this summer, its remaining functions to be folded into the State Department.

Federal employees are typically required to return their government-issued devices, in part to reduce the security risk of leaving potentially sensitive information with workers whose service has been terminated. The letter stipulates that devices will not be marked as “disposed” until they have been remotely wiped. It makes no request that the employees dispose of the devices.

There is also no clear deadline stipulated in the email, which says merely that devices will be remotely sanitized “on or around the employee Reduction in Force (RIF) date.” Staff based in the United States have been told that their employment will end by Aug. 15, which is also the date by which U.S.A.I.D.’s foreign service officers are expected to return to the United States.

The email also says that the administration will reach out to U.S.A.I.D. contractors who were fired weeks ago to let them know how to wipe their devices remotely.

With the planned closure of the agency, it was not clear what the government might have done with the returned devices. But their collective value is potentially significant.

Before President Trump returned to office in January and began cutting the work force, U.S.A.I.D. had over 10,000 employees. Though it was not immediately clear how many devices employees were issued, the value of the devices could reach into the millions of dollars.

Press officers for U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department did not immediately return requests for comment.

Julie Bosman

In response to the arrest of a sitting county judge on Friday in Milwaukee, Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin said that the Trump administration is attempting to undermine the judiciary “at every level.” “I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law,” said Evers, a Democrat.

Danielle Kaye

The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent this week, as Wall Street grasped for any signs of easing trade tensions. It was a week marked by dramatic swings: Monday saw a sharp sell-off fueled by Trump’s renewed attacks on Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, followed by four days of sizable gains.

Robert Jimison

Congressional reporter

During a news conference in Denmark, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the House minority leader, was asked if he would “stand in Trump’s way” if the president took action to claim Greenland. “It’s not my expectation that he will unilaterally and aggressively move on Greenland,” Jeffries told reporters, adding that he did not believe Republicans in Congress would back such a move by the president.

Tom Little/ReutersRobert Jimison

Congressional reporter

Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, called on President Trump to place the “toughest of sanctions on Putin,” writing in a social media post that he had seen “enough killing of innocent Ukrainian” women and children, and adding that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was “playing America as a patsy.”

Eric Lee/The New York TimesJulie Bosman

Hannah Dugan has spent most of her legal career working to help low-income people and marginalized groups.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah C. Dugan in Milwaukee in 2016.Lee Matz/Milwaukee Independent, via Associated Press

The Wisconsin judge who was arrested on Friday morning on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement spent most of her legal career working on behalf of low-income people and marginalized groups.

Federal authorities arrested the judge, Hannah C. Dugan of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, on suspicion that she “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from” an immigrant being pursued by federal authorities, Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote on social media. The authorities said that earlier this month, Judge Dugan directed an undocumented immigrant through a side door in her courtroom while the agents waited in a public hallway to apprehend him.

A statement issued on behalf of Judge Dugan late Friday stated that she “will defend herself vigorously and looks forward to being exonerated.” She has hired a former federal prosecutor to represent her, the statement said, and “has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge.”

Judge Dugan, widely known in progressive circles in Milwaukee, was elected by a wide margin in 2016, beating an incumbent appointee of Scott Walker, the Republican former governor of Wisconsin. Judge Dugan was unopposed for re-election in 2022. Her current term expires in 2028.

In 2023, she dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Republican Party of Wisconsin that argued a get-out-the-vote effort in Milwaukee violated the law.

Judge Dugan, 65, graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1987 and took a job at Legal Action of Wisconsin, a group that provides free legal services. She worked as a lawyer specializing in housing, public benefits and Social Security cases, and was the coordinator of the organization’s pro bono attorney program from 1990 to 1994, according to her LinkedIn page.

She later worked as the executive director for Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin. Judge Dugan has also served on the Milwaukee County Ethics Board.

As a lawyer for Legal Aid, Judge Dugan took on cases defending the indigent. In 1995, she represented people who panhandled on downtown sidewalks, arguing that banning them from doing so was unconstitutional.

In 2000, she argued that a surge in tickets written for “quality-of-life” issues had resulted in intimidation.

“Anecdotally, from my clients, people don’t want to go to court, much less to trial, because they’ve been particularly intimidated by officers,” she told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the time. “We’ve seen an increase in complaints of harassment and abuse.”

Judge Dugan lost a judicial race in 2012. During the campaign, she said she was nonpartisan and would be impartial, according to the Journal Sentinel.

“Justice is hard work. Everyone knows that,” she said.

Julius Kim, a criminal defense lawyer in Milwaukee who has known Judge Dugan for years, said on Friday that she is known for advocating on behalf of people who are “underrepresented in the justice system.”

“Social justice issues are close to her heart,” he said. “But that being said, I don’t think she’s known by any stretch to be any kind of pushover in the courthouse, either. I think she takes her obligations seriously as a judge.”

In 2021, Judge Dugan was a finalist in the “Most Trusted Public Official” category in the Best of Milwaukee contest in The Shepherd Express, an alternative publication.

In an article she wrote that year detailing the history of women in Wisconsin’s legal profession, Judge Dugan noted that a “passion project” of hers was to have her picture taken outside of every courthouse in Wisconsin.

Local officials in Milwaukee criticized her arrest.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson of Milwaukee said that “it sends a chilling effect to other people who participate in our judicial process here in Milwaukee.

“When folks do not participate in the judicial process, that makes our community less safe,” he said.

David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, said in a statement that Judge Dugan is “entitled to her constitutional right to due process.”

“However, it is clear that the F.B.I. is politicizing this situation to make an example of her and others across the country who oppose their attack on the judicial system and our nation’s immigration laws,” he said.

Outside the federal courthouse in Milwaukee on Friday afternoon, dozens of people gathered in protest of Judge Dugan’s arrest. Some called it an attack on the judiciary by the Trump administration, carrying signs reading “Hands off our judges.”

“If we don’t stand up now, we’ll lose the chance to,” said Jenica Wolski, 37, a graphic artist from the nearby suburb of Wauwatosa. “We are sliding so fast into authoritarianism, it’s scary.”

Dan Simmons and Robert Chiarito contributed reporting from Milwaukee.

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China says Trump’s executive order on seabed mining ‘violates international law.’

A 2021 expedition by a seabed-mining company explored the viability of the practice in the Pacific Ocean.Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

China’s foreign ministry said on Friday that an executive order President Trump signed a day earlier to accelerate the permitting process for seabed mining in international waters “violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community.”

The BBC earlier reported the remarks by a foreign ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

With the notable exception of the United States, nearly every country in the world is party to a treaty on marine and maritime activities that went into force in 1994, called the Law of the Sea Convention. That the United States has never ratified the treaty is in part what allowed Mr. Trump to unilaterally decide that the government could issue permits for mining the seabed in areas beyond American territorial jurisdiction.

The White House has argued that extracting critical minerals such as cobalt and nickel from nodules on the ocean floor is crucial to its supply of metals that go into a plethora of advanced technologies. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that will be tasked with issuing seabed mining permits, said the Trump administration had unlocked “the next gold rush.”

Dozens of countries have called for a moratorium on seabed mining, and even those, like China, who have been keen to see seabed mining take place, have urged restraint until the International Seabed Authority, an agency created under the treaty, agrees on rules for how companies can go about extracting minerals from the deep sea.

Many scientists see deep-sea mining as environmentally risky. It has never been done at commercial scale before, and the deep sea is one of the planet’s least understood ecosystems.

Many countries rebuked the Trump administration’s embrace of seabed mining several weeks ago, when a Canadian mining outfit, the Metals Company, announced that its American subsidiary would apply directly to the U.S. government for a permit for deep-sea mining in international waters.

Environmental groups expressed outrage over the executive order.

“Trump is trying to open one of Earth’s most fragile and least understood ecosystems to reckless industrial exploitation,” said Emily Jeffers, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The deep ocean belongs to everyone and protecting it is humanity’s global duty. The sea floor environment is not a platform for ‘America First’ extraction.”

Companies have been exploring the seabed for minerals for more than a decade. The richest zone they have found is in the Eastern Pacific, in an area called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which occupies a vast span under the ocean between Mexico and Hawaii.

Permitting in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone would be handled by the Commerce Department, through NOAA, which has been hit by large scale cuts to its funding and work force since Mr. Trump took office.

“NOAA provides Americans with accessible and accurate weather forecasts; it tracks hurricanes and tsunamis; it responds to oil spills; it keeps seafood on the table; and so much more,” said Jeff Watters at the nonprofit group Ocean Conservancy. “Forcing the agency to carry out deep-sea mining permitting while these essential services are slashed will only harm our ocean and our country.”

Michael C. Bender

The Education Department has opened an investigation into whether the University of California, Berkeley, is violating laws that require disclosure of foreign contributions and contracts worth more than $250,000. The department announced the investigation on Friday, one week after it opened a similar investigation into Harvard University.

Last year, Berkeley was one of several universities flagged in a report from the House Select Committee on The Chinese Communist Party, which accused it of failing to adequately report foreign funding. “Over the course of the last two years, UC Berkeley has been cooperating with federal inquiries regarding 117 reporting issues, and will continue to do so,” said Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university.

Peter Prato for The New York TimesChris Cameron

Reporting from Washington

Pam Bondi, the attorney general, described a county judge in Milwaukee who was arrested by the F.B.I. on Friday as “deranged,” and defended her arrest by saying it was “sending a very strong message.” Judge Hannah Dugan was charged on Friday with obstructing immigration enforcement; the government has accused her of steering an undocumented immigrant through a side door in her courtroom to evade federal agents.

“They’re deranged is all I can think of,” Bondi said on Fox News of Judge Dugan and another case involving a former judge in New Mexico who was arrested on Thursday in a different immigration case. “Some of these judges think they’re above the law. They are not.”

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Zach Montague and

U.S. restores legal status for many international students, but warns of removals to come.

A Justice Department lawyer said immigration officials had begun work on a new system for reviewing and terminating records for international students.Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

The Trump administration on Friday abruptly moved to restore thousands of international students’ ability to study in the United States legally, but immigration officials insisted they could still try to terminate that legal status despite a wave of legal challenges.

The decision, revealed during a court hearing in Washington, was a dramatic shift by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as the administration characterized it as only a temporary reprieve.

The back and forth only contributed to the anxiety and confusion facing international students as the administration has moved to cancel more than 1,500 student visas in recent weeks.

On Friday morning, Joseph F. Carilli, a Justice Department lawyer, told a federal judge in Washington that immigration officials had begun work on a new system for reviewing and terminating the records of international students and academics studying in the United States. Until the process was complete, he said, student records that had been purged from a federal database in recent weeks would be restored, along with their legal status.

A senior Department of Homeland Security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the students whose legal status was restored on Friday could still very well have it terminated in the future, along with their visas.

The changes on Friday came amid a wave of individual lawsuits filed by students who have said they were notified that their legal right to study in the United States was rescinded, often with minimal explanation. In some cases, students had minor traffic violations or other infractions. But in other cases, there appeared to be no obvious cause for the revocations.

Upon learning that their records had been deleted from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, scores of students have sued to preserve their status, producing a flurry of emergency orders by judges blocking the changes by ICE.

“We have not reversed course on a single visa revocation,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security Department spokeswoman. “What we did is restore SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked.”

It was not clear how many student visa holders have left the country to date after their records were deleted; facing the prospect of arrest, at least a handful have left before risking deportation. But the Trump administration had stoked panic among students who found themselves under threat of detention and deportation. A handful of students, including a graduate student at Cornell, have voluntarily left the country after abandoning their legal fight.

“It is good to see ICE recognize the illegality of its actions canceling SEVIS registrations for these students,” said Charles Kuck, an immigration lawyer who led a separate lawsuit over the revocations. “Sad that it took losing 50 times. What we don’t yet know is what ICE will do to repair the damage it has done, especially for those students who lost jobs and offers and had visas revoked.”

Judges reviewing the lawsuits so far have shown significant doubt that the abrupt changes to scores of students’ legal status are lawful, especially given the haphazard and often seemingly arbitrary way the administration has proceeded.

In March, the Trump administration moved to cancel visas and begin deportation proceedings against a number of students who had participated in demonstrations against Israel during the wave of campus protests last year over the war in Gaza. Federal judges had halted some of those revocations and slammed the brakes on efforts to remove those students from the country.

But in recent weeks, many students received word that their records had been deleted from the SEVIS database. That caused a wave of panic across the country among students and academics whose prospects of finishing a degree or completing graduate research were upended without warning.

By Friday evening, the government had already started moving to dismiss lawsuits over the SEVIS deletions, arguing that the administration’s policy change had made them unnecessary, since deleted records would be restored.

Other lawsuits, including a potential class action involving a number of states in New England, have moved forward, seeking to stop the administration from more broadly from carrying out further mass cancellations.

Another case out of Massachusetts, focused on instances where students were targeted over their speech in support of Palestine, a group has sued to prevent the administration from seeking to remove international students on First Amendment grounds.

A correction was made on April 25, 2025: 

An earlier version of this article and its headline misstated a Trump administration announcement related to international students. The administration said it would temporarily restore records in a federal database granting thousands of students legal status, not that it would restore canceled visas.


When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Alan RappeportTony Romm

Alan Rappeport and

Trump’s budget plan takes an ax to ‘radical’ programs that support child care, older adults and housing assistance.

The budget is merely the president’s formal recommendation to Congress, but it is likely to inform Republican lawmakers as they seek to fund a package that would extend and expand a set of tax cuts enacted during President Trump’s first term.Eric Lee/The New York Times

The Trump administration, which has made clear that it aims to slash government spending, is preparing to unveil a budget proposal as soon as next week that includes draconian cuts that would entirely eliminate some federal programs and fray the nation’s social safety net.

The proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year would cut billions of dollars from programs that support child care, health research, education, housing assistance, community development and the elderly, according to preliminary documents reviewed by The New York Times. The proposal, which is being finalized by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, also targets longstanding initiatives that have been prized by Democrats and that Republicans view as “woke” or wasteful spending.

Technically, the president’s blueprint is merely a formal recommendation to Congress, which must ultimately adopt any changes to spending. The full extent of President Trump’s proposed cuts for 2026 is not yet clear. Rachel Cauley, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement that “no final funding decisions have been made.”

But early indications suggest the budget will aim to formalize Mr. Trump’s disruptive reorganization of the federal government. That process — largely overseen by the tech billionaire Elon Musk — has frozen billions of dollars in aid, shuttered some programs and dismissed thousands of workers from their jobs, prompting numerous court challenges.

The early blueprint reflects Mr. Trump’s long-held belief that some federal antipoverty programs are unnecessary or rife with waste, fraud and abuse. And it echoes many of the ideas espoused by his budget director, Russell T. Vought, a key architect of Project 2025 who subscribes to the view that the president has expansive powers to ignore Congress and cancel spending viewed as “woke and weaponized.” He previously endorsed some of the cuts to housing, education and other programs that Mr. Trump is expected to unveil in the coming days.

The White House is expected to release the budget as soon as next week, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the highly secretive process. The president is expected to couple his blueprint for 2026 with a second measure — also set for release next week — that would slash more than $9 billion in previously approved spending for the current fiscal year, including money that funds PBS and NPR.

In total, the proposed cuts are likely to inform Republican lawmakers as they look for ways to fund their economic agenda, including a package that would extend and expand a set of tax cuts enacted during Mr. Trump’s first term. Their ambitions are projected to cost trillions of dollars, though Republican leaders have explored whether to invoke a budget accounting trick to make it seem as though their tax package does not add considerably to the federal debt.

In an interview with Time published on Friday, Mr. Trump suggested that he liked the idea of making millionaires pay higher taxes to help offset tax cuts for others but also said it would be politically untenable.

Some of the cuts the administration is envisioning could exacerbate the federal deficit. The White House is looking to reduce about $2.5 billion from the budget of the Internal Revenue Service with the goal of ending the Biden administration’s “weaponization of I.R.S. enforcement,” which it said targeted conservatives and small businesses. Budget scorekeepers have previously said that cuts to the I.R.S. would reduce the amount of revenue coming into the government, since it would make it harder for the tax collector to go after businesses and people who owe money but do not pay.

In many cases, the draft budget slashes many federal antipoverty programs, generally by cutting their funds and consolidating them into grants sent to the states to manage. The full extent of those changes is not clear, but the result could be fewer programs and dollars serving low-income Americans, who may be at risk of losing some benefits.

Among the most prominent programs that could be eliminated is Head Start, which provides early education and child care for some of the nation’s poorest children.

Documents reviewed by The Times show the White House is considering a $12.2 billion cut, which would wipe out the program. The budget document says Head Start uses a “radical” curriculum and gives preference to illegal immigrants. A description of the program also criticizes it for diversity, equity and inclusion programming and the use of resources that encourage toddlers to welcome children and families with different sexual orientations.

Despite the Trump administration’s pledge to make housing more affordable, the budget draft would reduce funding for several programs that support housing developments or provide rental assistance. The budget proposes saving $22 billion by replacing the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s rental assistance programs with a state-based initiative that would have a two-year cap on rent subsidies for healthy adults.

The draft budget also eliminates the Home Investment Partnerships Program, cutting the $1.25 billion fund that provides grants to states and cities for urban development projects on the basis that it is “duplicative” of other federal housing programs. It also cuts the $644 million housing block grant programs for Native Americans and Native Hawaiians, saying that these would be unnecessary because of new, unspecified initiatives such as enhanced “opportunity zones” that would give states greater incentives to provide affordable housing.

The overhaul of the nation’s health research apparatus, a few years after the coronavirus pandemic killed millions of people around the world, could also be drastic, with about $40 billion in proposed cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The draft budget recommends cutting $8.8 billion from the National Institutes of Health, which it declared has “broken the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”

The proposal would consolidate and shrink some of the agency’s core functions that focus on chronic diseases and epidemics. It would entirely eliminate funding for some divisions, such as the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which would lose the $534 million that it currently receives.

The budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be almost halved, to $5.2 billion from $9.2 billion. Associated programs such as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response would be eliminated. A note in the preliminary document refers to overdose prevention funding by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as the “Biden crack pipe.”

Although Mr. Trump has said he prioritizes “law and order” in his presidency, his budget proposes about $2 billion of combined cuts to the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The D.E.A. cuts would scale back international counternarcotics efforts in European countries that are equipped to crack down on drug trafficking. The A.T.F. cuts would eliminate offices at the agency that the Trump administration says have “criminalized law-abiding gun ownership through regulatory fiat.”

The proposal said the goal was to invest in getting F.B.I. agents into the field and to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the bureau that were “pet projects” of the Biden administration.

“Importantly, this administration is committed to undoing the weaponization of the F.B.I. that pervaded during the previous administration, which included targeting peaceful, pro-life protesters, concerned parents at school board meetings and citizens opposed to radical transgender ideology,” said the note explaining the proposed cuts.

As part of Mr. Trump’s “America First” approach, the budget draft calls for more than $16 billion in combined cuts for economic and disaster support for Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia, as well as humanitarian and refugee assistance and U.S.A.I.D. operations.

“To ensure every tax dollar spent puts America First, all foreign assistance is paused,” the draft budget document said. “To be clear, this is not a withdrawal from the world.”

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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAlan Feuer

In a new legal filing stemming from a fight with a federal judge in Washington, the Justice Department has affirmed the fundamental notion that the White House has to follow instructions from the courts. “The executive must abide by judicial orders,” department lawyers wrote. While that idea might seem obvious, the Trump administration has repeatedly sidestepped and flouted orders from judges in an array of cases.

In the filing, the lawyers asked a federal appeals court to pre-emptively stop Judge James E. Boasberg from opening a contempt investigation into whether the White House violated an order he issued last month pausing the use of a wartime statute to deport Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to El Salvador.

Zach Montague

Reporting from Washington

A Justice Department lawyer said during a hearing in Washington on Friday that the administration was poised to reverse course on its mass cancellation of student visas held by international students and academics. The abrupt shift came after the administration has revoked more than 1,000 visas in recent weeks, spawning an avalanche of lawsuits.

Jan Hoffman

Trump budget draft ends Narcan program and other addiction measures.

A federal program that supplies emergency responders with Narcan, the overdose reversal drug, and trains them to use it could be eliminated.Arin Yoon for The New York Times

The opioid overdose reversal medication commercially known as Narcan saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is routinely praised by public health experts for contributing to the continuing drop in opioid-related deaths. But the Trump administration plans to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes doses and trains emergency responders in communities across the country to administer them, according to a draft budget proposal.

In the document, which outlines details of the drastic reorganization and shrinking planned for the Department of Health and Human Services, the grant is among many addiction prevention and treatment programs to be zeroed out.

States and local governments have other resources for obtaining doses of Narcan, which is also known by its generic name, naloxone. One of the main sources, a program of block grants for states to use to pay for various measures to combat opioid addiction, does not appear to have been cut.

But addiction specialists are worried about the symbolic as well as practical implications of shutting down a federal grant designated specifically for naloxone training and distribution.

“Reducing the funding for naloxone and overdose prevention sends the message that we would rather people who use drugs die than get the support they need and deserve,” said Dr. Melody Glenn, an addiction medicine physician and assistant professor at the University of Arizona, who monitors such programs along the state’s southern border.

At the scene of an emergency, first responders can hand out extra doses of Narcan and information about addiction recovery services.Arin Yoon for The New York Times

Neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the White House’s drug policy office responded to requests for comment.

Although budget decisions are not finalized and could be adjusted, Dr. Glenn and others see the fact that the Trump administration has not even opened applications for new grants as another indication that the programs may be eliminated.

Other addiction-related grants on the chopping block include those offering treatment for pregnant and postpartum women; peer support programs typically run by people who are in recovery; a program called the “youth prevention and recovery initiative”; and programs that develop pain management protocols for emergency departments in lieu of opioids.

The federal health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has long shown a passionate interest in addressing the drug crisis and has been outspoken about his own recovery from heroin addiction. The proposed elimination of addiction programs seems at odds with that goal. Last year, Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign produced a documentary that outlined federally supported pathways out of addiction.

The grants were awarded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency within the federal health department that would itself be eliminated under the draft budget proposal, though some of its programs would continue under a new entity, the Administration for a Healthy America.

In 2024, recipients of the naloxone grants, including cities, tribes and nonprofit groups, trained 66,000 police officers, fire fighters and emergency medical responders, and distributed over 282,500 naloxone kits, according to a spokesman for the substance abuse agency.

“Narcan has been kind of a godsend as far as opioid epidemics are concerned, and we certainly are in the middle of one now with fentanyl,” said Donald McNamara, who oversees naloxone procurement and training for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “We need this funding source because it’s saving lives every day.”

Matthew Cushman, a fire department paramedic in Raytown, Mo., said that through the naloxone grant program, he had trained thousands of police officers, firefighters and emergency medical responders throughout Kansas City and western rural areas. The program provides trainees with pouches of naloxone to administer in the field plus “leave behind” kits with information about detox and treatment clinics.

Matthew Cushman, a paramedic in Raytown, Mo., has taught thousands of police officers, firefighters and emergency medical responders how to use Narcan.Arin Yoon for The New York Times

In 2023, federal figures started to show that national opioid deaths were finally declining, progress that many public health experts attribute in some measure to wider availability of the drug, which the Food and Drug Administration approved for over-the-counter sales that year.

Tennessee reports that between 2017 and 2024, 103,000 lives saved were directly attributable to naloxone. In Kentucky, which trains and supplies emergency medical workers in 68 rural communities, a health department spokeswoman noted that in 2023, overdose fatalities dropped by nearly 10 percent.

And though the focus of the Trump administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy is weighted toward border policing and drug prosecutions, its priorities, released in an official statement this month, include the goal of expanding access to “lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medications like naloxone.”

“They immediately reference how much they want to support first responders and naloxone distribution,” said Rachel Winograd, director of the addiction science team at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who oversees the state’s federally funded naloxone program. “Juxtaposing those statements of support with the proposed eliminations is extremely confusing.”

Mr. Cushman, the paramedic in Missouri, said that ending the naloxone grant program would not only cut off a source of the medication to emergency responders but would also stop classes that do significantly more than teach how to administer it.

His cited the insights offered by his co-instructor, Ray Rath, who is in recovery from heroin and is a certified peer support counselor. In training sessions, Mr. Rath recounts how, after a nasal spray of Narcan yanked him back from a heroin overdose, he found himself on the ground, looking up at police officers and emergency medical responders. They were snickering.

“Ah this junkie again, he’s just going to kill himself; we’re out here for no reason,” he recalled them saying.

Ray Rath, who is in recovery from heroin, leads naloxone trainings alongside Mr. Cushman, giving emergency responders the viewpoint of someone who was revived by the medication numerous times.Arin Yoon for The New York Times

Mr. Rath said he speaks with trainees about how the individuals they revive are “people that have an illness.”

“And once we start treating them like people, they feel like people,” he continued. “They feel cared about, and they want to make a change.”

He estimated that during the years he used opioids, naloxone revived him from overdoses at least 10 times. He has been in recovery for five years, a training instructor for the last three. He also works in homeless encampments in Kansas, offering services to people who use drugs. The back of his T-shirt reads: “Hope Dealer.”

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The F.B.I. arrested a Wisconsin judge, accusing her of helping an immigrant evade federal agents.

Hannah Dugan in 2016. Ms. Dugan, a county judge in Milwaukee, was arrested on Friday. Mike De Sisti/USA Today Network, via Imagn Images

F.B.I. agents arrested a Milwaukee judge on Friday on charges of obstructing immigration agents, saying she steered an undocumented immigrant through a side door in her courtroom while the agents waited to arrest him in a public hallway.

The decision to charge a sitting state court judge is a major escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with local authorities over deportations. The administration has demanded, under threat of investigation or prosecution, that local officials not impede federal efforts to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and the arrest sent a message that the administration intends to take a harder line with those that do.

The arrest of the judge, Hannah Dugan, comes after months of rising tensions between the Trump administration and the judiciary. President Trump and his top advisers have repeatedly assailed “local judges” for halting or questioning actions taken by the administration, particularly when it comes to immigration cases.

Mr. Trump’s drive to round up and deport large numbers of migrants has also led to other disputes with federal judges, especially over his use of the Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelans out of the country.

In the Milwaukee case, charging documents described a confrontation last Friday at Judge Dugan’s courthouse, in which federal agents said she was “visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor” when a group of immigration, D.E.A. and F.B.I. agents came to apprehend Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a citizen of Mexico who was in her courtroom to face domestic violence charges.

According to the criminal complaint, the judge confronted the agents and told them to talk to the chief judge of the courthouse. She then returned to her courtroom.

“Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge Dugan then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” said the complaint, which was written by an F.B.I. agent.

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent spotted Mr. Flores-Ruiz leaving the building and notified his colleagues, according to the complaint. Agents approached him on the street outside the courthouse. “A foot chase ensued,” the complaint said. “The agents pursued Flores-Ruiz for the entire length of the courthouse” before catching and arresting him, the complaint said.

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Read the Charges Against Judge Hannah Dugan

The F.B.I. filed this document in the case on Thursday.

Read Document 13 pages

The judge was charged with obstructing a proceeding of a federal agency, and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest.

After a brief appearance as a defendant in federal court in Milwaukee, which unfolded about a mile from her own courthouse, the judge was released on her own recognizance.

In a statement, the judge’s defense team said she would fight the charges.

“Judge Dugan will defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated,” the statement said, adding that she had hired Steven Biskupic, a former U.S. attorney, to represent her. “Judge Hannah C. Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge.”

The bureau arrested Judge Dugan on suspicion that she “intentionally misdirected federal agents,” Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote on social media on Friday, before the charges were unsealed.

David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, criticized the F.B.I.’s handling of the case.

“It is clear that the F.B.I. is politicizing this situation to make an example of her and others across the country who oppose their attack on the judicial system and our nation’s immigration laws,” he said in a statement.

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, also raised concerns about how the Trump administration was treating judges. “Unfortunately, we have seen in recent months the president and the Trump administration repeatedly use dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level, including flat-out disobeying the highest court in the land and threatening to impeach and remove judges who do not rule in their favor.“

Pam Bondi, the attorney general, defended the arrest of the judge, telling Fox News that when someone obstructs justice by “escorting a criminal defendant out a back door, it will not be tolerated.”

“It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to be prosecuted,” Ms. Bondi said.

Ms. Bondi also discussed the recent arrest of a former judge in New Mexico, who was charged with obstruction over harboring a person federal agents said was a Venezuelan gang member.

“Some of these judges think they’re above the law. They are not,” she said. “We will come after you and prosecute you. We will find you.”

Christopher A. Wellborn, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, reacted with alarm to the judge’s arrest, saying American democracy “rests upon the independence of the judiciary.”

“Retaliatory action from the executive branch that appears to undermine this foundation demands our unwavering scrutiny and a resounding response,” he added.

The chief judge in Milwaukee County, Carl Ashley, said in a statement that Judge Dugan’s caseload would be handled by another jurist in the courthouse and declined to comment further.

The Trump administration has vowed to investigate and prosecute local officials who do not assist federal immigration enforcement efforts, denouncing what they call “sanctuary cities” for not doing more to assist federal apprehensions and deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants.

There is no precise legal definition for a sanctuary city, but the term generally refers to places where local governments put limits on how much they will assist federal authorities with deportation efforts. While disagreements about immigration enforcement are often political and policy fights, there are also significant differences in federal and local laws that contribute to the different approaches.

At the Justice Department, senior officials have urged prosecutors to look for cases in which local authorities, whether they are municipal, state or court officials, have tried to stop or hinder immigration agents.

The Milwaukee case involves a frequent flashpoint in that debate, when immigration agents try to arrest immigrants who are appearing in state court. Local authorities often chafe at such efforts, arguing they endanger public safety if people dealing with relatively minor legal issues feel it is unsafe to enter courthouses.

The charging papers against Judge Dugan suggested she had been incensed to learn that immigration agents were in the courthouse, and had called it “absurd,” according to one witness.

At first, the judge asked the immigration agent if he was in the courthouse for a hearing, and when the agent said no, the judge “stated that the agent ‘would need to leave the courthouse,’” according to the complaint.

Judge Dugan then asked the agent if they were in possession of a judicial warrant, to which the agent replied no, it was an administrative warrant, according to the complaint. I.C.E. typically uses administrative warrants, which are issued by the agency to apprehend people.

Such warrants do not carry the same authority as a warrant issued by a judge, meaning that people in their homes typically don’t need to open their doors to immigration agents in possession of only an administrative warrant.

In the first Trump administration, a local Massachusetts judge was indicted on federal charges of obstructing immigration authorities. The charges were dropped after the judge agreed to refer herself to potential judicial discipline.

That case also involved allegations that a judge had allowed a defendant being sought by I.C.E. agents to leave the building via a back door in order to avoid detention. The Massachusetts Judicial Conduct Commission has filed formal disciplinary charges against Judge Shelley Joseph. She has denied wrongdoing.

Glenn Thrush, Julie Bosman and Chris Cameron contributed reporting.

Mattathias SchwartzEmily Bazelon

Mattathias Schwartz and

Judges worry Trump could tell U.S. Marshals to stop protecting them.

President Trump in the Oval Office last week. Since he took office in January, he and his supporters have insulted judges on social media and called for their impeachment.Eric Lee/The New York Times

On March 11, about 50 judges gathered in Washington for the biannual meeting of the Judicial Conference, which oversees the administration of the federal courts. It was the first time the conference met since President Trump retook the White House.

In the midst of discussions of staffing levels and long-range planning, the judges’ conversations were focused, to an unusual degree, on rising threats against judges and their security, said several people who attended the gathering.

Behind closed doors at one session, Judge Richard J. Sullivan, the chairman of the conference’s Committee on Judicial Security, raised a scenario that weeks before would have sounded like dystopian fiction, according to three officials familiar with the remarks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations: What if the White House were to withdraw the protections it provides to judges?

The U.S. Marshals Service, which by law oversees security for the judiciary, is part of the Justice Department, which Mr. Trump is directly controlling in a way that no president has since the Watergate scandal.

Judge Sullivan noted that Mr. Trump had stripped security protections from Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, and John Bolton, his former national security adviser. Could the federal judiciary, also a recent target of Mr. Trump’s ire, be next?

Judge Sullivan, who was nominated by President George W. Bush and then elevated to an appellate judgeship by Mr. Trump, referred questions about his closed-door remarks to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which stated its “complete confidence in those responsible for judicial security.”

There is no evidence that Mr. Trump has contemplated revoking security from judges. But Judge Sullivan’s remarks were an extraordinary sign of the extent of judges’ anxiety over the threats facing the federal bench. And they highlight a growing discomfort from judges that their security is handled by an agency that, through the attorney general, ultimately answers to the president, and whose funding, in their view, has not kept pace with rising threats.

Mike Pompeo. Mr. Trump’s former secretary of state, in National Harbor, Md., in 2023. A White House spokesman said Mr. Trump’s decision to strip security from former officials had no bearing on his approach to sitting judges.Haiyun Jiang /The New York Times

“Cutting all the security from one judge or one courthouse — stuff like that hasn’t happened, and I don’t expect it to,” said Jeremy Fogel, a retired federal judge who directs the Berkeley Judicial Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, and is in frequent contact with current judges. “But, you never know. Because it’s fair to say that limits are being tested everywhere. Judges worry that it could happen.”

The Marshals Service said in a statement that it acted “at the direction of the federal courts” and “effectuate all lawful orders of the federal court.” The integrity of the judicial process, the statement read, depends on “protecting judges, jurors and witnesses.”

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Trump’s decision to strip security from Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Bolton, two former officials, had no bearing on his approach to sitting judges. He called worries that the president would deprive judges of their security “speculation” that was “dangerous and irresponsible.”

Founded in 1789, the U.S. Marshals Service has a wide range of law-enforcement duties, in addition to its central function of supporting the judiciary. There are now 94 presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed U.S. marshal positions, one for each judicial district. The agency’s director reportsto the deputy attorney general.

The concerns about who oversees the marshals come as threats against judges have been on the rise, expanding the burdens on the service.

Statistics released by the agency show that the number of judges targeted by threats more than doubled from 2019 to 2024, before Mr. Trump returned to office. In those years, he disputed the result of the 2020 election in court, and the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that made access to abortion a constitutional right. In June 2022, after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe leaked, an armed man made an attempt to assassinate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh at his home.

In his end-of-year report for 2024, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted “a significant uptick in identified threats at all levels of the judiciary.”

Mr. Trump with his national security adviser John Bolton, right, at the White House in 2018. The president has removed Mr. Bolton’s security protections.Al Drago for The New York Times

Since Mr. Trump took office in January, he and his supporters have insulted individual judges on social media and called for their impeachment in response to rulings they don’t like. In a message posted on Easter, Mr. Trump referred to “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges” who are allowing a “sinister attack on our Nation to continue” in regard to immigration.

Judges and their family members have in recent weeks reported false threats of bombs in their mailboxes. As of mid-April, dozens of pizzas have been anonymously sent to judges and their family members at their homes, a means of signaling that your enemy knows where you live.

According to Ron Zayas, the chief executive of Ironwall, a company that contracts with district courts, state courts and some individual judges to provide data protection and security services for judges and other public officials, the number of judges using his services for emergency protection is more than four times the average number for last year. He said 40 judges also used their own money to bolster their security with Ironwall, twice as many as on Jan. 1.

In a letter to Congress dated April 10, Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., who directs the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, complained that funding for court security remained frozen at 2023 levels through the 2025 fiscal year “at a time when threats against federal judges and courthouses are escalating.” Judges have issued similar warnings for years.

The total amount spent has remained nearly flat, rising to $1.34 billion in 2024 from $1.26 billion in 2022, according to statistics from the administrative office and the marshals, despite inflation and staff pay increases.

At the same time, burdens on the service have grown.

In recent years, the U.S. Marshals said in a statement, they have started helping to protect the homes of the Supreme Court justices, whose security is primarily handled by the separate Supreme Court Marshal’s Office. Last summer, a U.S. marshal stationed outside Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s home in Washington shot and wounded an armed man in an attempted carjacking.

The Supreme Court in Washington. After its ruling on Roe v. Wade leaked in 2022, an armed man made an attempt to assassinate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh at his home.Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

In January, the Trump administration gave the marshals, along with other law enforcement agencies, the new power to enforce immigration laws. That move prompted Judge Edmond E. Chang, who chairs the Judicial Conference’s criminal law committee, to write a memo to all district-court and magistrate judges warning about the potential impact on the marshals’ ability to protect them. (Judge Chang declined to comment; his memo was reported earlier by Reuters.)

In addition to protecting judges’ lives, U.S. law states the marshals’ “primary role and mission” is “to obey, execute, and enforce all orders” from the federal courts. Enforcing court orders can entail imposing fines and imprisonment for anyone judges find to be in contempt of court, including, in theory, executive branch officials.

The Trump administration’s posture in some cases raises the possibility that the already-stretched marshals could emerge as a crucial referee between the branches. In the courtroom, Justice Department lawyers have come close to openly flouting court orders stemming from the unlawful deportation to a prison in El Salvador of a group of nearly 140 Venezuelans and Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose removal officials admitted was an “administrative error.” Two judges have responded by opening inquiries that could lead to administration officials being held in contempt of court.

“What happens if the marshals are ordered to deliver a contempt citation to an agency head that has defied a court order?” asked Paul W. Grimm, a retired federal judge who leads the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke University. “Are they going to do that? The question of who the Marshals Service owes their allegiance to will be put to the test in the not-too-distant future, I suspect.”

Concern over the oversight of the Marshals Service is not new. A 1982 report by the Government Accountability Office called the marshals’ oversight arrangement “an unworkable management condition.” As a possible solution, it proposed legislation to move control of the marshals to the judiciary.

Some members of Congress have begun proposing a similar solution.

“Do you think you could better protect judges if your security was more independent?” Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, asked a federal judge testifying on behalf of the Judicial Conference at a hearing in February, two weeks before Judge Sullivan’s remarks.

About 50 judges gathered in Washington for the biannual meeting of the Judicial Conference, which oversees the administration of the federal courts. It was the first time the conference had met since Mr. Trump retook the White House.Eric Lee/The New York Times

Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, responded that he considered the question of independent oversight legitimate. The judge answered that the conference would consider the matter.

In an interview, Mr. Swalwell said he was drafting legislation that would put the judiciary in charge of its own security.

Last month, Ronald Davis, who led the agency under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., issued a stark warning on LinkedIn of “a constitutional crisis if a president refuses to enforce or comply with a federal court order.” He too proposed measures to insulate the marshals from potential interference by the executive branch.

In the meantime, the administration’s immediate goal for the Marshals Service may be to shrink it.

On April 15, Mark P. Pittella, the agency’s acting director, sent a letter to more than 5,000 employees of the service as part of the staff-cutting measures associated with Elon Musk’s project, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, offering them the opportunity to resign and be eligible for more than four months of administrative leave with full pay. In the letter, obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Pittella wrote that agency leadership would review applications to ensure they did not “adversely impact U.S.M.S. mission-critical requirements.”

But a spokesman for the service said the offer was open to employees in all areas of responsibility, including marshals tasked with protecting judges.