New Orleans health officials brace for cuts as Trump admin eyes ‘woke’ programs

by Katie Jane Fernelius, Verite, Louisiana Illuminator
February 2, 2025

NEW ORLEANS – Last week’s move by the Trump administration to freeze trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans — pending a top-to-bottom review to identify spending that does not align with the president’s ideological agenda — sent shockwaves through the country.

States reported that they couldn’t access Medicaid funds; nonprofit groups providing services such as crime victim advocacy and grants for scientific research warned that they may have to scale back their work; and colleges and universities cautioned that research and services supported by grants could come to a standstill.

The pause also caused consternation in New Orleans City Hall. The city’s government, like many municipalities, depends heavily on federal funding to operate.

According to the city’s adopted budget for 2025, New Orleans expects to receive more than $400 million in federal funds – more than 20% of total expected revenues for the year.

The funding pause, however, is itself now paused. First, the Office of Management and Budget rescinded the order. Then a judge temporarily blocked the order, following a lawsuit by a group of nonprofits. But city officials worry that even if the pause may be temporarily on hold, federal funding for vital services may still be eventually withdrawn.

Federal funds that go to the city aren’t concentrated in one department but can be found across various city departments and agencies. Federal money supports the Mosquito Control Board, the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and the Office of Resilience and Sustainability, among others.

But perhaps no department is at greater risk than the New Orleans Health Department, where more than half of the departmental budget and two-thirds of the staff would be immediately impacted by a full freeze on federal funding.

“No health department has enough funding to make up for a 60% cut in revenue,” New Orleans Health Department spokeswoman Isis Casanova said in an email. “We are discussing with city leaders about options to continue services and staff uninterrupted should a temporary freeze come to pass, but a permanent cut would be devastating to our operations (and those of cities in general).”

That’s no longer an immediate concern. But the federal review still looms, and a significant chunk of the department’s budget goes to the types of so-called “woke” programs that Trump says he wants to eliminate, including those used to provide health care services to homeless people, maternal and infant health and community-based anti-violence work.

‘Real and immediate consequences for public health’

On Monday, the federal Office of Management and Budget, which administers federal funding, announced a temporary pause to seemingly all such funding – an estimated $3 trillion of financial assistance provided across the country and abroad. The dramatic move left countless cities, states and organizations scrambling, as they questioned how the wide-reaching pause would impact them in both the short- and long-term.

The memo called for an across-the-board ideological review of all federally funded programs as part of the concentrated effort by President Donald Trump to attack progressive initiatives.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” wrote Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, in the memo.

Over the past several years, NOHD has shifted much of its focus to social and economic justice, following its most recent Community Health Improvement Plan, which addresses the social determinants of health. Under a Trump administration making broad attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion and other allegedly “Marxist” ideas, these justice-focused initiatives could come under fire.

Because of this, the city has long anticipated that it might need to fight to keep its federal funding.

Before Trump took office, New Orleans Health Department officials made a list of all programs they feared could be on the chopping block due to a Republican-controlled Congress paired with a Trump-led White House. They also developed a strategy to address any risks to their funding: planning, first, to proactively discuss the importance of these programs with federal agency staff and members of the congressional delegation and, second, to identify potential alternative sources of funding so they could maintain programming and staffing.

But the threat of a sudden and comprehensive funding pause has forced the department to act quickly to defend its programs.

In a Thursday document listing all the programs at immediate risk, Casanova wrote, “This is More Than A Funding Issue – It’s a Public Health Emergency.”

“The disruption of these programs is not just an administrative challenge — it has real and immediate consequences for public health,” Casanova continued. “Families, children, seniors, and vulnerable populations who rely on these services will be directly impacted.”

According to Casanova, some of the impacted programs include Healthy Start, which supports maternal and infant health, Health Care for the Homeless, which provides primary health care services, and Ubuntu Peace Ambassadors, a community-based violence interruption program. All three of the federal funding streams that back these initiatives are on a list of the more than 2,600 programs currently under OMB’s review, The New York Times reported.

According to data provided by the city, Healthy Start, which seeks to reduce infant mortality, served over 700 families in 2024, providing home visitation, prenatal support, breastfeeding support and car seat education, among other services. Healthy Start has also screened families for mental health and intimate partner violence.

Similarly, NOHD’s violence prevention efforts have been extensive. It also supported the distribution of more than 700 biometric firearm safes through the Children’s Hospital. And the Ubuntu Peace Ambassadors program has responded to over 100 shootings in the city.

“These programs have allowed us to effectively change the landscape within our communities,” Casanova said.

City health officials hope that they can keep funding in place to support these critical services. But at least one community partner says that it will keep up its work – regardless of whatever threats may come.

In an interview conducted before the funding pause commotion last week, Ernest Johnson, director of Ubuntu Village, cautioned against being swept up in the fearmongering caused by the Trump administration.

“Sometimes narrative can get people thinking and have a predictive threat,” Johnson said. “We aren’t going to shift, because of this threat. We may be a little more strategic, but that doesn’t mean we will abandon it because of what may come.”

This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://veritenews.org/2025/01/31/city-health-department-trump-funding/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } }

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.

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Federal immigration officials have extensive technology at their disposal

by Paige Gross, Louisiana Illuminator
February 1, 2025

As President Donald Trump deploys federal agents to carry out plans of mass deportations at the start of his term, he has a massive amount of technology at his disposal to track, categorize and surveil immigrants.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Citizen and Immigration Services have spent $7.8 billion on immigration technologies from 263 different companies since 2020, the New York Times reported this week. The technologies include biometric tracking, such as facial recognition, voice analyzing, and fingerprint scanning, location tracking via software and ankle monitoring and rapid DNA testing tools.

The agencies also have access to investigative tools that can search through emails, text messages and other files on locked phones, and they contract with data analytics firms to store and sort through massive amounts of data compiled on immigrants currently in the U.S.

The access to these technologies is not new to the Trump administration. Much of the spending on these tech contracts began during President Joe Biden’s term, and many tools were designed for investigations of drug traffickers and other criminals, beginning after the 9/11 attacks.

Marina Shepelsky, an immigration attorney based in New York, said four groups of immigrants are being targeted in Trump’s raids. Those with criminal convictions will likely be the highest priority, she said, but those who have been issued a deportation order by a judge or those who entered the country under the Biden administration are also targets.

Anyone who is in the U.S. unlawfully without status, meaning without a visa, or on an expired visa, is at risk, Shepelsky said.

The Department of Homeland Security outlines the various uses of the AI technology that it has at its disposal, but Shepelsky said she sees it likely being focused on combing through immigration records, and cross-referencing data from visa applications, criminal records and social media platforms.

Federal agents are also likely using predictive AI modeling in various ways, she said, like assessing the likelihood of overstaying visas or engaging in criminal behavior. The department collects known information, like immigration status, compliance history, caregiver status and criminal history, and assigns each person something called a “hurricane score.” The score, ranked 1-5, is calculated by a machine learning algorithm designed to determine if a person may flee immigration proceedings.

Shepelsky warns of the systematic biases AI algorithms can produce; “[they] may unfairly target certain demographics, increasing risks of racial profiling,” she said.

Peter Salib, an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center said he, too, believes AI can streamline a lot about the immigration process. If your goal is to target immigrants who have committed serious crimes, as was policy under the Biden and Obama administrations, he said, AI can probably help you do that well.

“AI can really help you accomplish your goal and impose fewer costs on the people who don’t need to be swept up in enforcement,” Salib said.

But access to these technologies and intent are different things, Salib said. While the Biden administration had access to these tools in recent years, it was not planning the wide-reaching deportation efforts we’re seeing Trump execute now.

“The technology exists out in the world, and so even if you’re scared of a kind of slippery slope into using it poorly, it’s not really clear that you can get off that slope just by declining to use it when you are in the administration that has the ‘good’ goals,” Salib said.

Though there are ethical concerns with AI, there’s potential to improve parts of border security and citizenship processes with the technology, Shepelsky said. It’s helped process visa applications faster and detect fraudulent documents, as well as streamlined high-demand employment visas.

Technology will likely continue to play a role in Trump’s immigration policies and in other parts of his early administration agenda, Salib said.

“I think it’s the world we live in now,” Salib said. “And the choice we have is about policy more than about what technology is available to the people who want to enforce policies.”

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.

Louisiana mother, New York doctor indicted for allegedly giving minor abortion pills

by Lorena O’Neil, Louisiana Illuminator
January 31, 2025

A Baton Rouge-area grand jury indicted a New York doctor and a Louisiana mother Friday on felony charges for allegedly providing an illegal abortion with drugs obtained through the mail.

It is the first criminal case of its kind in the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which triggered Louisiana’s strict abortion ban. 

Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her company, Nightingale Medical, and the mother of the minor in question were all indicted in the 18th Judicial District Court. The Illuminator is not identifying the mother in order to protect the minor’s identity. The news was first reported by WAFB-TV.

District Attorney Tony Clayton said the mother was taken into custody at West Baton Rouge Parish Jail. She had posted bond as of Friday evening. Her bond amount was not immediately available.

Prosecutors claim the mother ordered abortion medication from Carpenter, who sent it to her in the mail, and the mother reportedly gave it to her pregnant child. 

“The minor child was home alone, felt that she had to take the pill because of what her mother told her,” Clayton said in an interview with Talk Louisiana. 

In an interview with the Illuminator, Clayton said he will be personally trying this case alongside Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.  Their prosecution involves a law approved in 2022, when then state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, a Slidell Republican, authored the proposal that makes it a crime to knowingly cause an abortion through medication.

The pregnant person cannot be charged with a crime under this law, and Clayton said he would not have prosecuted the minor in this instance.

Breaking the law carries penalties of one to five years in prison and a fine range of $5,000-$50,000. The same measure also made it illegal to obtain such drugs through the mail from out of state.

Murrill weighed in on the indictments via social media Friday.

“It is illegal to send abortion pills into this State and it’s illegal to coerce another into having an abortion,” she said. “I have said it before and I will say it again: We will hold individuals accountable for breaking the law.”

The crime of “coerced abortion” was not cited in the indictment, but the law involving that crime is what led to Louisiana becoming the first state to reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances. The designation typically applies to highly addictive drugs. Mifepristone and misoprostol are not addictive, and both have multiple uses beyond abortion and are on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. 

In his interview with Talk Louisiana, Clayton referred to the drugs as “poison,” comparing them to fentanyl, and said doctors can’t “hide behind the borders of New York” to ship the medication to Louisiana. [Mifepristone and misoprostol are not related to fentanyl.] 

“To put a pill in commerce that ultimately [goes] into the mouth and stomach of a child, I believe that some folks have to answer to that,” Clayton said. “If it’s legal in New York, keep it up there. Don’t do it down here.”

New York has shield laws intended to protect telehealth providers. 

Carpenter is also being sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for allegedly sending pills to the state, but the charges are not criminal.

Carpenter is one of the founders of the Abortion Coalition of Telemedicine (ACT). In a statement to the Illuminator, ACT said it stands behind New York’s shield laws. 

“The case out of Louisiana against a licensed New York doctor is the latest in a series of threats that jeopardizes women’s access to reproductive healthcare throughout this country,” reads the statement. “Make no mistake, since Roe v. Wade was overturned, we’ve witnessed a disturbing pattern of interference with women’s rights. It’s no secret the United States has a history of violence and harassment against abortion providers, and this state-sponsored effort to prosecute a doctor providing safe and effective care should alarm everyone.”

This is a developing story. It was most recently updated at 8:34 p.m. Friday.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.