Week in Review

IN THE NEWS

• A top U.S. Food and Drug Administration official announced a plan to change the vaccine approval process by requiring more evidence of vaccines’ safety and value before the vaccines can be marketed. In an internal memo, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer Vinay Prasad reportedly said the agency will impose stricter requirements to authorize vaccines for pregnant women and will revise the annual flu vaccine framework. Prasad also reportedly claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine resulted in the deaths of 10 children. In response, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics expressed concern that the proposed changes could “limit children’s access to safe, proven vaccines.”
• U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem advocated the expansion of an existing federal travel ban, decrying “foreign invaders” in an X post reposted by President Donald J. Trump, after the murder of two U.S. National Guard officers last week, allegedly by an Afghan immigrant. The current ban restricts travel from 19 countries, including Afghanistan, but would reportedly expand to 30 countries. The Trump Administration has tightened immigration enforcement in response to the murders by halting the review of visa and asylum applications from Afghanistan and increasing scrutiny of green card applications from any of the 19 restricted countries.
• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched immigration enforcement operation “Operation Catahoula Crunch” in New Orleans with the aim of arresting up to 5,000 undocumented immigrants. DHS has deployed additional U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents to support planned arrests targeting individuals the agency describes as “criminal undocumented immigrants.” Prior enforcement data, however, show that many people detained in similar operations have no criminal history.
• A federal judge blocked the Trump Administration from denying Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates. A provision in President Donald J. Trump’s mega tax and spending law prohibited Medicaid funding for tax-exempt reproductive health organizations that perform abortions and received more than $800,000 in Medicaid funds during the 2023 fiscal year. A group of state attorneys general argued that the provision violated the Constitution by attaching conditions to federal funding without clear notice. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani held that the Constitution requires Congress to be clear when imposing federal funding requirements so states can decide whether to accept a restriction on their authority, and paused the ruling for seven days to allow the Trump Administration to appeal.
• The Trump Administration removed eight immigration judges based in New York City, including Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Amiena Khan. A U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson defended the firings as part of restoring “integrity” to the immigration system despite dismissed judges describing the process as arbitrary and harmful to the rule of law. The Administration has simultaneously appointed 11 new permanent judges and 25 temporary judges, largely military attorneys, for six-month terms after previously loosening experience requirements for temporary appointments. In total, the Administration has dismissed 98 judges since January, with an almost equal amount resigning or retiring.
• U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced a discharge petition to force the U.S. House of Representatives to vote on the Restore Trust in Congress Act. The act would ban Congress members from trading individual stocks and require the sale of any currently held stocks. The bill’s sponsor, U.S. Representative Chip Roy (R-Tex.), claimed that these measures would stop Congress members from “put[ting] the stock market first in their official decisions.” In a video highlighting the discharge petition, Representative Luna accused some Democratic and Republican Congress members of insider trading.
• Costco, joining several other businesses, sued the Trump Administration for reimbursement for tariff payments if the Supreme Court strikes down the Trump Administration’s recent tariffs as unconstitutional. The Court heard arguments in November about whether U.S. foreign trade deficits constitute an “unusual and extraordinary threat”—a legal prerequisite for the tariffs—after the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that the tariffs are not a sufficient threat. Costco further asked the Court of International Trade to block U.S. Customs and Border Protection from finalizing the tariff payments owed, which would otherwise leave the businesses ineligible for reimbursement regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it would withdraw a proposal requiring cosmetic companies to test their talc-containing products for asbestos. The agency cited Make America Healthy Again priorities, the technical questions flagged in public comments to the proposal, and the complexity of asbestos regulation as motivations for its decision. The agency stated it will issue a separate proposed rule to meet its statutory obligations under the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 which require that the agency issue talc regulation for detecting asbestos. Senior Vice President Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group criticized the withdrawal, arguing it undermines efforts to reduce asbestos exposure.

WHAT WE’RE READING THIS WEEK

• A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined several digital tools for prospective homebuyers and assessed how these tools may run afoul of federal fair housing laws. GAO researched tools including automated property valuation and underwriting algorithms. The office noted the consumer benefits offered by these platforms, such as increased convenience, decreased delays and reduced transaction costs. GAO also found, however, that the digital tools could perpetuate discrimination by using data from historically undervalued areas and potentially violate fair housing laws by steering certain buyers toward or away from certain listings. GAO recommended that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which enforces fair housing laws, provide guidance clarifying its compliance expectations to central actors in the mortgage market.
• In a Brookings Institution article, Joshua P. Meltzer and Maricarmen Barron Esper of the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings examined whether Chinese goods are avoiding U.S. tariffs by entering the country through Mexico and Canada. They explained that China may reroute products by transshipping goods through North America, incorporating Chinese parts into Mexican or Canadian manufacturing supply chains, or investing directly in North American factories that then export to the United States. They noted that most of this activity is legal under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement’s (USMCA) rules of origin. Meltzer and Barron Esper argued that the United States, Mexico, and Canada should better coordinate tariff and investment policies toward China, ahead of a 2026 USMCA review.
• A recent Pew Research Center report examined federal efforts to expand broadband internet access and argued that poor data are hindering implementation efforts. Pew identified that federal data only track the internet access of entire census tracts, meaning individual homes without access in otherwise-connected areas are overlooked. Federal data also fail to track pricing and affordability, meaning low-income areas where residents are priced out of access are still reported as having internet. Humphrey recommended incorporating metrics that more directly measure beneficial impacts, including surveys of users, to detect gaps in internet infrastructure.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Joseph Blocher, Distinguished Professor at Duke University School of Law, and Darrell A. H. Miller, a professor at The University of Chicago Law School, argued that gun rights scholarship, which mainly focuses on constitutional issues such as liberty and state power, should incorporate more concepts from regulatory scholarship. Blocher and Miller contended that the “risk versus risk” framework used in regulatory regimes to balance costs and benefits can fill a gap in the “rights versus rights” approach commonly seen in gun scholarship debates. Blocher and Miller claimed that introducing risk management principles from regulatory law rather than treating gun policy as purely rights-based could help tackle the problem of how to handle guns.