President Donald Trump has ordered Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to use “all available funds” to pay U.S. troops on Oct. 15, despite the ongoing government shutdown that has threatened military paychecks for 1.3 million active duty service members.
The federal government shut down on Oct. 1 after lawmakers failed to pass a funding bill. Democrats in the Senate have repeatedly blocked efforts to reopen the government, leading to the first situation in American history where active-duty troops could miss a paycheck.
Trump said he would not allow that to happen.
“Chuck Schumer recently said, ‘Every day gets better’ during their Radical Left Shutdown. I DISAGREE!” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social. “If nothing is done, because of ‘Leader’ Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th.”
“That is why I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th,” the president continued. “We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS.”
I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown,” Trump added. “The Radical Left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT, and then we can work together to address Healthcare, and many other things that they want to destroy.”
Trump’s announcement comes as the shutdown reaches its second week, with hundreds of thousands of federal workers already receiving partial pay and service members warned that their October 15 paychecks were at risk.
The administration has been reviewing options to ensure military pay continues without congressional approval. A senior White House official told reporters Thursday that Trump is “exploring every legal avenue” to guarantee service members are paid on time.
Republicans have blamed Democrats for refusing to pass a clean funding bill to reopen the government. Democrats have argued that Republicans must agree to extend certain Affordable Care Act tax credits that were set to expire before the COVID pandemic.
Rep. Jenn Kiggans, R-Va., a former Navy helicopter pilot, praised Trump’s directive and called on lawmakers to reopen the government immediately.
“I thank President Trump for standing up for our men and women in uniform,” Kiggans said. “They should never be used as political pawns. Congress must act to end this shutdown now and fully fund the military.”
The Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, have continued to vote to keep the government closed.
“Democrats have now voted EIGHT TIMES to BLOCK pay for our troops and federal workers. Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats think every day of this shutdown “gets better” for them — even as it hurts hardworking Americans. Once again, Democrats are putting AMERICANS LAST,” Speaker of the House and Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson said.
Trump’s decision marks the latest in a series of unilateral steps to blunt the effects of the Democrat-led shutdown, which has drawn sharp criticism from the White House toward Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus.
The notices went out quietly. No press conference, no televised announcement, just a three-line email landing in inboxes of immigration judges across the country. The message was brief and without explanation, but unmistakably clear: their time on the bench had ended.Roughly 50 federal immigration judges have now been dismissed, according to reports, as President Donald Trump pushes forward with his pledge not only to secure the southern border but to root out what he describes as a “judicial swamp” that obstructed enforcement of immigration laws. Another 50 judges have reportedly been transferred or encouraged into retirement.The dismissals mark a dramatic escalation of Trump’s efforts to reshape America’s immigration system from the ground up — this time not at the border itself, but within the courtrooms responsible for handling millions of cases.With a backlog of more than three million immigration cases still clogging the system, the move has ignited a political storm.
For years, conservatives have argued that immigration judges were too often sympathetic to migrants and lenient toward deportation cases, creating what they describe as a culture of “catch and release.” Trump’s return to the White House has put those judges directly in his crosshairs.According to El País, the majority of dismissals involved judges appointed during the Obama and Biden years, many of whom were accused of consistently granting asylum requests, delaying deportation proceedings, or issuing rulings that clashed with the administration’s enforcement priorities.
The judges themselves have pushed back hard, calling the dismissals unfair and retaliatory. Many have gone public with allegations of political targeting, discrimination, and abuse of executive power.Yet Trump and his allies frame the purge as accountability long overdue in a system they say has operated without consequences for too long.
One of the most vocal critics is Jennifer Peyton, an Obama-era appointee who joined the immigration bench in 2016. She claims she received her termination email while vacationing with her family.
Peyton insists she had no disciplinary record and had even received strong performance reviews during her tenure. She believes her firing may have been linked to her decision to host a courthouse tour for Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has been one of Trump’s fiercest opponents on immigration policy.Durbin himself called her dismissal an “abuse of power” and accused the administration of orchestrating a political purge. Trump’s supporters, however, say Peyton represents exactly the type of judge who undermined immigration enforcement for years, granting benefits and delays to migrants that the administration considered unlawful.Another dismissed judge, Carla Espinoza of Chicago, argued that her contract was not renewed due to her gender and Hispanic background. She points to a case where she released a Mexican national who had been falsely accused of threatening the president.Homeland Security had flagged the man as a potential threat, but Espinoza ruled in his favor, calling the case “unsubstantiated.” Her defenders see this as proof of her fairness; her critics say it is precisely the kind of ruling that justified her dismissal.The dismissals have also sparked whistleblower claims. Erez Reuveni, a former Department of Justice lawyer who previously defended Trump’s immigration policies, says he was fired after refusing to label a deported Salvadoran as a terrorist.Reuveni admits the case had been mishandled but argues that DOJ leaders were pressuring staff to fast-track deportations regardless of due process.He now accuses the administration of “manipulating the system” and bypassing judicial checks to accelerate deportation flights.To Trump’s supporters, however, what Reuveni describes as manipulation is seen as long-overdue efficiency. With a backlog in the millions and growing public frustration, they argue that streamlining deportations is a necessary corrective to years of bureaucratic dysfunction.
The National Association of Immigration Judges, which has long clashed with Republican administrations, says the dismissals amount to political retaliation. Its president, Matt Biggs, confirmed that about 50 judges were dismissed outright and another 50 were reassigned or nudged into retirement.Biggs claims the rest of the bench feels “threatened” and uncertain about their future. He insists that judicial independence is being sacrificed for political expediency.Supporters of Trump counter that immigration judges are not Article III judges with lifetime appointments but administrative law officers within the executive branch. That distinction, they argue, makes them subject to policy direction and accountability in ways traditional judges are not.The shake-up in immigration courts reflects a broader struggle over who controls America’s immigration policy: elected officials or appointed judges.During Trump’s first term, immigration judges frequently clashed with the Department of Justice over asylum standards, case quotas, and expedited dockets.The result was an increasingly adversarial relationship, with many judges accusing the administration of undermining judicial independence, while administration officials accused judges of sabotaging enforcement efforts.This time, Trump is moving aggressively to eliminate that conflict by replacing judges who resist his directives. By dismissing dozens at once, he is sending a signal that resistance will no longer be tolerated.The firings also coincide with Senate confirmations of Trump-aligned officials to higher courts. Emil Bove, a senior DOJ official who has overseen immigration enforcement efforts, was recently confirmed to a federal appeals court with the backing of the Trump-friendly Senate.