Trump pursues immigration crackdown and trade war with China

House Republicans will get back to work this week on their sweeping tax and spending cuts package, otherwise known as President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

The package aims to extend the GOP’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, as well as fulfill several of Trump’s campaign promises, such as ending taxes on tips. To help offset these tax reductions, which would total trillions of dollars over a decade, the House is looking for at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

House committees started marking up their portions last week, though the most controversial pieces — notably steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, as well as the tax cut measures — still need to be tackled in the days ahead.

Here’s what we know so far about early drafts of the proposed legislative package:

• Federal student loans: The House plan could dramatically restructure the way students can borrow from the federal government for college, as well as make big changes to the popular Pell grant program.

• Defense spending: The House Armed Services Committee is proposing to add roughly $150 billion to strengthen the nation’s defense programs, including for Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative, the feasibility and strategic value of which has been sharply called into question by experts.

• Immigration fees and ICE funds: Immigrants applying for asylum and work authorization, as well as those applying for humanitarian parole and temporary protected status, could have to pay new or higher fees.

• Border security: The House Homeland Security Committee is proposing tens of billions of dollars to bolster border security, including $46.5 billion to expand and modernize the border barrier system.

• Judges’ power to rein in Trump: The plan could defund the enforcement of contempt orders against the Trump administration in certain cases, as the president wages a multi-front campaign to attack the legal institutions serving as a check on his aggressive use of executive power.

Read more about the bill here, including how it could impact federal employee benefits, electric vehicles, air traffic control and other key issues.