David J. Bier President Trump is imposing a $100,000 fee to obtain an H‑1B visa, the primary visa for skilled foreign workers. To be clear, this $100,000 fee is in addition to the salary, lawyer fees, and other costs of hiring an H‑1B worker. This fee would effectively end the H‑1B visa category by making it prohibitive for most businesses ...
Walter Olson Number fifteen in our series of occasional roundups on election law and policy: “It sure looks like the Civil Rights Division is trying to do what the Pence-Kobach Commission failed to do eight years ago: assemble a national voter file.” Is that legal? [Justin Levitt, Election Law Blog] More and related: Claire Rush and Ali Swenson, Associated Press (DOJ ...
Michael F. Cannon Blue states are learning that it’s sometimes better if public health doesn’t come from the national government. The New York Times reports: New York and several other Northeastern states are forging a regional public health coalition to issue vaccine recommendations and coordinate public health efforts in a rebuke to the Trump administration’s shifts on health policy.… The ...
Patrick G. Eddington At the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) May 2024 convention, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump told those assembled, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms.” In the wake of the tragic mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis in August 2025, the regime’s tone changed, and in an alarming way for every law-abiding American gun ...
Travis Fisher The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report on Wednesday declaring that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) most sweeping climate policy—dating back to 2009—is “beyond scientific dispute.” The report was submitted to the EPA and surely will be used in litigation against the Trump administration. However, by jumping into the political food fight, the ...
Patrick G. Eddington Mike German. (Brennan Center for Justice) This morning, I learned that my dear friend and colleague Mike German had retired from his position as a fellow in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. Mike’s relationship with Cato goes back almost 17 years (you can listen to his very first Cato Daily Podcast appearance here), including Cato ...
Mike Fox Last spring, in a unanimous decision that could have been a major victory for police accountability, the Supreme Court struck a decisive blow to a deeply flawed legal doctrine. In Barnes v. Felix, the Justices rejected the idea that courts should only look at the “moment of threat”—the very instance an officer uses deadly force. The Court held ...
Brent Skorup On a recent podcast with Benny Johnson, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr urged broadcasters to “take action … on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” That’s an unusually blunt warning, and it gives Americans a glimpse into the strange world of broadcast law. Many people naturally wonder, “I dislike what Kimmel said—but how ...
Colleen Hroncich “That’s insane. I can’t start a school,” Rachel Good, founder of Discovery Learners’ Academy in Chattanooga, TN, initially told her husband. A longtime public school special education teacher, Rachel had grown increasingly frustrated by the system. Her career had spanned K‑8th grade, including self-contained special education classrooms, students with emotional and behavioral disorders, and inclusion, which means supporting ...
Thomas A. Berry ABC has announced that it is suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show indefinitely. This comes in the wake of two important events. First, Kimmel delivered a monologue in which he said that “The MAGA Gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” And second, FCC Chairman Brendan ...