It’s another crossover week: This time Equitable Federal Workforce and Medical Research Funding confront recent efforts to further consolidate executive power. We also have updates on violent responses to protest in Immigration and on work-reporting roll-outs for Medicaid. 

Equitable Federal Workforce + Medical Research Funding 

Major procedural changes are shifting the balance of power within the federal government. The administration is reclassifying thousands of federal jobs using a “Schedule P/C” designation, functionally transforming them into political appointees. Many of the 8,000 affected employees are in relatively senior leadership roles, but the list notably includes researchers and grants managers in health and science agencies. This change removes many of their employment protections and makes them substantially easier to fire. 

Separately, a sweeping new rule proposed by the Office of Management and Budget would allow the executive branch to seize control of the entire trillion-dollar system of government grants. Our Medical Research Funding team breaks down some implications of the rule for their specific domain: Peer review would be explicitly sidelined. Instead, senior political appointees would conduct ideological review. Research funding would be entirely dependent on alignment with presidential priorities, and agency leaders would have the power to terminate grants at any point, for any reason. The rule would prohibit grants related to topics like DEI or gender, further limit international collaboration, and allow blacklisting of researchers and institutions for even a history of affiliation with a disfavored organization or country. 

Immigration

The Immigration team added 24 new events to our timeline. Across the country, hundreds of immigrant detainees are engaged in hunger strikes to protest inhumane treatment. In New Jersey, ICE is responding to the strike and work stoppage at Delaney Hall with brutality. Detainees have been pepper-sprayed and beaten, as have protesters and observers outside the facility, including Senator Andy Kim. Elsewhere, prosecutors have dropped all remaining charges against Chicago protestors. A federal judge reviewed grand jury transcripts in the Broadview Six case and identified three incidents of possible prosecutor misconduct. And the day after a federal judge barred immigration arrests in New York City courthouses, ICE arrested a Honduran man as he left his immigration hearing in a Manhattan court.

Medicaid

The Medicaid team added 2 new events to our timeline, both concerning the administration’s “war on fraud.” Fifteen people are facing criminal indictments for fraud in Minnesota. Though these cases were built and pursued by state authorities, the federal government is weaponizing them as justification to withhold more than $350 million in Medicaid funds, despite having approved the state’s corrective action plan earlier this year. New work-reporting requirements designed to exclude “able-bodied” people from Medicaid are slated to go into effect next January. To maintain coverage, people must generally prove that they spend 80 hours per month working, volunteering, attending school, or seeking work. A rule released this week narrows exemptions for those whose disabilities, illnesses, or injuries ”significantly impair” (PDF) their ability to work. The stricter criteria, with more frequent reassessment, will strip Medicaid coverage from millions of people every year.

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