People pray during an interfaith service, held adjacent to the Miami Immigration Court, on behalf of immigrants, on November 13, 2025 in Miami. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” said one advocate.
A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday struck down a series of President Donald Trump’s policies that he ruled were rooted in “anti-immigrant sentiments” and ordered the administration to resume processing of asylum grants and immigration benefit applications of people from 39 targeted countries.
Last November, US Citizenship and Immigration Services indefinitely suspended asylum adjudications and froze immigration applications for people affected by a travel ban implemented after a man from Afghanistan allegedly shot two National Guard troops in Washington, DC.
Trump vowed to “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries” and expedite the removal of people his administration doesn’t consider “a net asset” to the United States. The administration’s move halted the ability of people from affected nations to obtain green cards, US citizenship, and other benefits.
US District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said in his ruling that the administration’s policies are rooted in “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making” and have placed immigrants living in the United States in “indeterminate legal limbo.”
“The challenged policies placed the lives of countless individuals on hold—solely by virtue of their countries of birth,” McConnell wrote. “Over six months later, many of those individuals remain without work, without legal status, and without any meaningful ability to plan for their futures.”
“The government effectively invites the court to shut its eyes and ignore the strong evidence of anti-immigrant animus before it,” the judge added. “Doing so would require profound naiveté on the court’s part. Unfortunately for the government, that is an invitation that this court will have to decline.”
US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival slammed McConnell’s ruling in a social media post accusing “the Left” of “running the same gambit with so-called ‘animus’ claims since 2017.”
“It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing,” Percival added. “It goes like this: (1) the admin is racist, (2) therefore a policy I don’t like is motivated by race, (3) therefore it is invalid. They have used it on virtually every Trump-era DHS policy.”
Plaintiffs and others involved in the case welcomed McConnell’s decision.
“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement.
“These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum seekers, and communities across the country who were left in limbo, unable to work, access protections, or move forward with their lives,” Perryman added. “We are pleased that the court recognized the devastating human consequences of these policies. Our communities deserve a fair process governed by law, not political targeting rooted in fear-mongering and discrimination.”
Milagro Sique, CEO at the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, said: “Today is a good day. On behalf of the thousands of immigrants we serve, we are grateful to Judge McConnell for his ruling.”
“These policies were wrong, plain and simple, and caused profound fear and uncertainty for so many of our friends, neighbors, and coworkers,” Sique added. “Having the judicial process work as intended—by upholding the rule of law—gives us some reassurance that all is not lost and allows those who have been impacted to move forward with their lives in a meaningful way.”
Abbey Koenning-Rutherford, staff attorney at Muslim Advocates, said that “today’s decision is an unsparing rejection of the government’s discriminatory and unlawful actions to gut access to immigration benefits under the false pretext of national security.”
“These policies unjustly revived the discriminatory logic of the first Muslim and African bans and expanded them widely to millions of community members already inside the United States,” she continued, referring to policies enacted during Trump’s first term.
“In vacating these unlawful policies, the court makes it unmistakably clear that the Trump administration cannot hold the lives of immigrants in legal limbo based on their countries of birth, and must continue processing their applications for status and benefits as required by law,” Koenning-Rutherford added.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—an immigrant from India—was among the Democratic lawmakers who applauded Friday’s ruling, writing on social media that “this is a BIG win.”
“A judge has now reaffirmed that Trump’s freeze on processing immigration applications for 39 countries is illegal and that processing must restart immediately,” she added. “Today’s ruling is not the end of the fight, but it is a major step in the right direction.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
Among other things, the pardoned rioters have faced charges related to grand larceny, fraud, child sexual abuse, and plots to assassinate law enforcement officials and politicians.
On the first day of his second term last year, President Donald Trump delivered a mass pardon to more than 1,500 people who were charged with crimes related to the violent riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
An analysis published Thursday by Lawfare associate editor Katherine Pompilio finds that at least 97 of these pardoned Trump supporters have been charged with other crimes, including serious alleged offenses such as grand larceny, fraud, and plots to assassinate law enforcement officials and politicians.
The analysis also documents 14 instances of pardoned Capitol rioters being “charged with sex crimes or crimes related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” while “at least six” have been charged with domestic violence.
Some of the pardoned rioters have been charged with more minor offenses, including public intoxication, possession of drug paraphernalia, and property damage.
The most notable finding is that at least five of the repeat offenders committed crimes after being freed from prison as a result of Trump’s actions, suggesting that his pardon “may have actively facilitated criminal conduct.”
The most infamous case involves Andrew Paul Johnson, a Capitol rioter who was freed from prison after receiving the Trump pardon and has since been sentenced to life in prison on charges related to child molestation.
“The criminal conduct for which he was convicted took place both before and after his pardon,” the analysis notes.
Other repeat offenders who committed crimes after being freed by Trump were Zachary Alam, who was convicted of felony and grand larceny months after being pardoned, and Ryan Nichols, who was arrest last month for allegedly “threatening a person with a gun in a church parking lot,” the analysis finds.
According to a Thursday report from The New York Times, the Lawfare analysis more than doubles the number of documented instances of pardoned rioters who have been charged with crimes beyond January 6-related offenses.
“A previous study of January 6 recidivism found that at least 40 defendants faced other criminal charges, with 12 taking place after Trump’s clemency order,” reported the Times. “The Lawfare study found 19 criminal cases that occurred after the clemency.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump urges you to be a typical and common symptoms like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) president Everett Kelley speaks alongside Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) at a press conference on federal workforce rights outside the US Capitol on March 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The head of America’s largest federal workers union called it “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”
Labor unions are warning that an executive order signed this week by President Donald Trump will allow his administration to replace thousands of career civil servants with “political loyalists.”
The order, signed on Wednesday, converts around 8,000 federal workers—most of whom are at senior levels in the civil service with major influence over policy decisions—to Schedule Policy/Career (P/C) status, formerly known as Schedule F, effectively making them “at-will” employees whom the president can fire at his discretion.
While a small number, around 4,000, of the roughly 2 million federal workers are considered political appointees, most federal employees cannot be removed purely for failing to serve the agenda of the president and can usually only be fired for issues like inadequate performance or misconduct, which involves an appeal process.
But as part of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle what it’s described as a “deep state” of disloyal bureaucrats, a major objective of the Heritage Foundation’s right-wing manifesto Project 2025, those 8,000 employees may now be fired for “subversion of presidential directives.”
According to the US Office of Personnel Management, this could be just the beginning—with as many as 50,000 employees potentially in consideration to be rescheduled.
A fact sheet released by the White House said that despite the reclassification, “these remain ‘career’ positions and the non-partisan hiring processes, competitive status, and other aspects of these roles will not change,” while “removal decisions will also be made without respect to political affiliation.”
But Trump-loyal department heads—everywhere from the Department of Justice to the Pentagon—have systematically purged employees across executive departments that are perceived as Trump’s political enemies.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said on Thursday that “Schedule P/C is the next phase in Trump’s anti-worker agenda to replace government workers with political loyalists who answer only to him.”
“As we’ve seen from his first day in office, the president is determined to tear down the architecture of our federal government and replace it with a system of corruption to benefit powerful CEOs and billionaire union-busters,” she said.
It’s part of a broader attack on the federal workforce in Trump’s second term. Through a combination of firings, layoffs, and forced resignations, he has reduced the number of government employees by nearly 300,000, causing chaos and understaffing at many agencies. He’s also stripped more than 1 million unionized federal workers of their right to collective bargaining, though courts have blocked the implementation for some workers.
Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents more than 800,000 federal workers, said Wednesday’s order was “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”
“The practical implications of this action are clear. Workers who once felt comfortable reporting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at their place of employment because they were protected from retaliation will now be afraid for their jobs if they speak out,” he said. “That is a disservice to them and to the millions of Americans who rely on the federal government every day.”
William Shackelford, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, added that the order “threatens expanded political cronyism, increasing the risk that executive actions will be decided by the size of political contributions rather than the faithful execution of the law.”
“That increases the risk of politically motivated enforcement of laws, threatening individual liberty; politically determined tariff exceptions and contract and grant awards, threatening greater corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars; and politically selective provision of services, threatening failure of government operations for disfavored groups or localities,” he said.
The legal watchdog Democracy Forward has filed a lawsuit against Trump’s rebranding of Schedule F as Schedule P/C at the start of his second term, which the group argued allowed several positions in the traditional nonpartisan civil service to be effectively recast as political appointees.
“For generations, our country has relied on a professional, nonpartisan civil service,” said Skye Perryman, the group’s president and CEO on Wednesday. “The people responsible for protecting our public health, safeguarding our environment, delivering our mail, managing our airports, protecting our public lands, and enforcing our laws should be allowed to do their jobs, not targeted by the same government they serve.”
“When government experts can be fired without cause,” she added, “it’s not just federal workers who are harmed—it’s the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Credit: Guy Bell/Alamy Live News
Nigel Farage’s anti-climate party has received two thirds of its income from oil investors.
Reform UK has received £24 million from oil and gas interests, accounting for more than two thirds of its total income, DeSmog can reveal.
Led by Nigel Farage, the party is calling for new North Sea oil and gas drilling ahead of UK-wide elections in May on the ill-founded claim that it will cut energy bills.
DeSmog’s analysis reveals that 67 percent of Reform’s funding to date has come from donors with financial interests in fossil fuels, totalling more than £24 million.
A further £2.4 million has been donated by individuals who have disputed basic scientific facts about climate change.
“What these extraordinary numbers make clear is that Reform is less a political party and more a very highly paid public-facing lobby group for oil and gas interests,” said Jolyon Maugham, executive director of the Good Law Project campaign group.
The biggest chunk (£22 million) has been gifted by Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, whose firm AML Global sells jet fuel, which is made from crude oil. More than half (£12 million) of this figure was donated in 2025.
Another £1.7 million has come from hedge fund boss Jeremy Hosking, whose investment firm Hosking Partners has $440.8 million (around £326.5 million) invested in oil, gas, and coal. As revealed by DeSmog, Hosking Partners has ramped up its fossil fuel investments in recent months during the war in Iran, which has caused energy shortages and windfall profits for oil giants.
Reform has received more than £2 million from its deputy leader Richard Tice, a property millionaire who has denied that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing climate change – instead calling it “plant food”.
Farage has himself claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant.
The party has also accepted £230,000 from management consultancy First Corporate Consultants, whose owner Terence Mordaunt is a former chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). The GWPF is the UK’s foremost climate denial group, and has claimed CO2 emissions are a “benefit to the planet”.
In total, Reform has received almost £26.7 million from climate deniers and fossil fuel interests since it was set up by Farage as the Brexit Party in 2019 – roughly three quarters (74 percent) of its total £36 million income.
IN NUMBERS: Reform’s smoggy £26 million
Christopher Harborne
Fossil fuel interest
£22,190,000
Richard Tice
Climate science denier
£2,257,919
Jeremy Hosking
Fossil fuel interest
£1,718,000
Terence Mordaunt
Climate science denier
£230,000
Ashley Mark Levett
Fossil fuel interest
£200,000
Jacques J. Tohme
Fossil fuel interest
£50,000
TOTAL
£26,652,919
Reform – which is leading UK-wide polls at 25 percent – has vowed to “scrap net zero”, end subsidies for wind and solar power, approve new oil and gas exploration, lift the ban on fracking for shale gas, and open new coal power plants.
The party has doubled down on these policies during the Iran war. Earlier this month, Tice called for the UK to extract “every last drop” of oil and gas in the North Sea, and described new drilling as “our patriotic duty”.
Green Party MP Ellie Chowns told DeSmog: “When you receive nearly two thirds of your funding from vested interests, it is no surprise you dance to their tune.
“This exposes precisely why Reform wants to promote fossil fuels and undermine the green transition to renewables that would provide us with cheaper, secure energy.”
New climate modelling has indicated that a critical Atlantic current is significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought, while scientists have warned of a “rapidly closing window” to limit temperatures rises to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
In March, the UK’s independent Climate Change Committee said the entire cost of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050 would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock – two of which have been experienced by the UK in the past five years.
Meanwhile, a report by the New Economics Foundation last year concluded that Reform’s anti-renewables agenda could cost 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the economy.
“It isn’t exactly a shock to discover that the party most reliant on fossil fuel funding is also ignoring climate science and claiming that more drilling will solve all of our energy problems,” Angharad Hopkinson, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, told DeSmog.
“But can they continue to hold that line as Trump’s war in Iran makes it more and more obvious that our dependence on oil and gas gives control over our energy prices to dictators and petrostates with no loyalty to the UK?”
Hopkinson added: “Reform is trying to walk a tightrope, presenting themselves as the party of patriotism while working to preserve foreign influence, rather than saving Britain money by switching to home-grown renewable energy and taking back control.”
Reform was approached for comment.
Reform’s Fossil Fuel Donors
Reform’s biggest donor is crypto investor Harborne, whose company AML Global supplies aviation and maritime fuel to a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website.
As reported by Private Eye, the price of jet fuel has doubled since the start of the war in Iran, which would benefit Harborne’s business interests.
One of AML Global’s past clients is the U.S. military, which made payments worth £115 million to AML Global’s Hong Kong division between 2020 and January 2026. It’s unclear if the U.S. military is still a client.
Harborne and AML Global didn’t respond to DeSmog’s request for comment. In response to a similar enquiry in 2024, he posted a lengthy statement on the AML Global website, stating: “Firstly, I am not a climate science denier and secondly, I do not seek to influence any government through donations or lobbying regarding their policies on climate change or in favour of corporate interests.”
However, Harborne is by far the biggest donor to the UK’s leading anti-climate party. In addition to his £22 million in donations to Reform, The Guardian has revealed that he gave £5 million personally to Farage before the 2024 general election.
DeSmog analysed Electoral Commission data going back to Reform’s founding, along with company accounts and investment registers.
Reform has also received £1.7 million from hedge fund boss Hosking, whose firm Hosking Partners has extensive fossil fuel holdings.
Its latest filings at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show the hedge fund has $369.7 million (around £273.7 million) invested in oil and gas companies, and $71 million (around £52.6 million) invested in coal firms.
Hosking’s total fossil fuel investments increased by almost 54 percent in the first three months of 2026.
Hosking previously told DeSmog: “I do not have millions in fossil fuels; it is the clients of Hosking Partners who are the beneficiaries of these investments.”
Reform also received £50,000 last year from Nova Venture Holdings. The company’s sole director, Jacques J. Tohme, is an oil executive with a long history in the industry. He is founder and managing partner at Samos Energy, which finances oil and gas projects in Southeast Asia. He previously founded Tailwind Energy – later merged with Serica Energy – an oil and gas company which operated in the North Sea and which “transacted” with Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil.
In November, the party accepted a further £200,000 from Ashley Mark Levett. He currently sits on the board of Monaco-based company, Levmet – a global commodities trader whose interests include fossil fuels.
Climate Denier Donors
Reform has also received more than £2.5 million from donors who have promoted climate science denial.
The party’s deputy leader Tice has provided £2.3 million via his companies TISUN investments, Britain Means Business, and Leave Means Leave since the party’s founding in 2019.
Tice has described carbon dioxide as “plant food”, and told Sky News: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change the climate. Given that it’s gone on for millions of years, it will go on for millions of years.”
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, has said it is “unequivocal” that human influence has caused “unprecedented” global warming.
Tice has been accused of hypocrisy for calling renewable energy “a massive con” while fitting solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations on his commercial properties.
In 2023, Reform received £230,000 from First Corporate Consultants, a company owned by Terence Mordaunt, who chaired the GWPF from November 2019 to October 2021.
The GWPF has claimed that carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised” when in fact it should be “two or three times” higher than current levels.
In reality, the IPCC has said CO2 emissions are causing dangerous climate change, fuelling extreme weather, crop failure, and excess deaths around the world.
Despite their opposition to climate science and their fossil fuel donations, Reform MPs represent some of the constituencies most at risk from extreme heat and flooding, including Farage’s constituency of Clacton and Tice’s seat of Boston and Skegness.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage looking at the floodwater in Burrowbridge, Somerset.
Credit: PA Images / Alamy
Other Big Donors of Note
Outside the scope of this analysis is Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur and Reform’s home affairs spokesman, who has donated £206,000 to the party.
While he has attacked climate action, Yusuf has not explicitly denied the role of man-made CO2 emissions to global warming.
Yusuf donated to Reform ahead of the 2024 election, after which he was appointed as the party’s chairman.
Following the election, Yusuf attacked the Labour Party’s clean energy policies, saying: “Labour champagne socialists are restricting supply of the cheapest form of energy for ordinary citizens.”
He has called net zero “religious madness” and described North Sea oil and gas as “a gift from god”. He welcomed Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president in 2024 as a rejection of “net zero fanaticism”.
The same year, Reform received £247,000 from David Lilley, a metals and mining executive and a director at the investment firm Drakewood Capital. The company holds a 20 percent stake in VSA Capital, which claims to have “a deep knowledge of mining and oil and gas” and which provides banking and brokerage services to the industry.
Lilley – an old friend of Farage – is also a director of Resolute 1850, a Reform-linked think tank rebranded as the Centre for a Better Britain. It was launched last year by right-wing academic James Orr to “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal”. Orr joined Reform as head of policy in February, having previously been a senior advisor to the party.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf.
Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy
Reform has received a further £990,000 from property billionaire Nick Candy, who is Reform’s treasurer and who claims to have sought party funding from oil and gas executives.
As DeSmog has reported, Candy also has financial interests in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Gulf petrostate. In late 2024, his firm Candy Capital entered into a “strategic joint venture partnership” with Modon Holding, which is chaired by a board member of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).
Between 2023 and 2025, the party accepted £95,000 from Panther Securities, a property investment company chaired by former UKIP donor Andrew Perloff, who has blamed rising inflation on climate policies and defended climate science deniers.
In June 2022, Perloff wrote: “Whilst they [scientists], of course, could be correct that global warming is happening, I feel it is worrying that those with different opinions are often prevented from presenting them for consideration.”
Reform has also received £36,000 from Heathrow Airport, which was found to be the world’s second most carbon-emitting airport in 2019. Heathrow has also donated to Labour and the Conservatives in recent years.
Farage’s Millions
Alongside these donations, Farage has received £664,000 since July 2024 from the anti-climate broadcaster GB News, which employs him as a presenter. The platform is co-owned by Paul Marshall, whose hedge fund had £1.8 billion invested in fossil fuels as of June 2023.
As revealed by DeSmog, Farage has received gifts from the UAE, and has been lavished with £150,000 worth of flights to give speeches to U.S. anti-climate groups.
Last year, Farage helped launch a UK-Europe branch of the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denial group which has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting skepticism about man-made climate change”.
In total, Farage has received almost £2 million in earnings and gifts since his election in 2024, including £675,000 from foreign sources.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Climate Adam discusses the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
