By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group in Congress is urging the Education Department to add nursing to a list of college programs that are considered “professional,” adding to public outcry after nurses were omitted from a new agency definition.

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The Trump administration’s list of professional programs includes medicine, law and theology but leaves out nursing and some other fields that industry groups had asked to be included. The “professional” label would allow students to borrow larger amounts of federal loans to pursue graduate degrees in those fields.

Under new rules proposed by the Trump administration, students in graduate programs deemed professional could borrow up to $200,000 for their degrees in total, and up to $50,000 a year. Loans for other graduate programs would be capped at $100,000 in total and $20,500 per year.

In the past, graduate students had been able to borrow federal loans up to the full cost of their programs.

In a Friday letter, lawmakers argue that a $100,000 cap on nursing graduate programs would make it harder for students to pay for expensive but high-demand programs, like those for nurse anesthetists. The annual cap would also pinch students in year-round nurse practitioner programs, which charge for three terms a year rather than just two and often cost more than $20,500 a year, they wrote.

The letter challenges the Education Department’s claim that few nursing students would be affected by the caps.

Programs for certified nurse anesthetists can cost more than $200,000, lawmakers said, but the programs typically pay off and supply a workforce that “overwhelmingly provides anesthesia to rural and underserved communities where higher cost physicians do not practice.”

The letter was signed by more than 140 lawmakers, including 12 Republicans. It was sent by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., leaders of the Senate and House nursing caucuses.

Another Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, sent a similar letter this week. Excluding nurses would require students to take out riskier private loans or put tuition out of reach entirely, said Torres, who represents the South Bronx.

“A restrictive interpretation would undermine our healthcare and education systems, weaken our workforce, and close doors for low-income, first-generation, and immigrant students who make up much of my district,” Torres said.

The Trump administration has said new loan caps are needed to pressure colleges to reduce tuition prices.

In deciding what would count as a professional degree, the department relied on a 1965 law governing student financial aid. The law lays out several examples of professional programs but says it is not an exhaustive list. The Trump administration adopted those examples as the only fields in its definition.

Those deemed professional are: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology.

The definition drew blowback from nursing organizations and other industry groups that were left out, including physical therapists and social workers. Department officials have said the new proposal may change as it’s finalized in a federal rulemaking process.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal appeals court blocked the immediate release of hundreds of immigrants detained during a Chicago area immigration crackdown in a split decision Thursday that also allowed the extension of a consent decree outlining how federal immigration agents can make warrantless arrests.

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The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments last week about the 2022 agreement governing how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can arrest immigrants besides those being specifically targeted in an operation. The consent decree has been in the spotlight amid the Trump administration’s Chicago-area immigration crackdown that’s led to more than 4,000 arrests.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings, who found the government violated the agreement, ordered the release of more than 600 immigrants on bond, which the appeals court paused. Roughly 450 remain in custody, attorneys say.

In the 2-1 opinion, the appeals court said Cummings overstepped his authority on the blanket release of the detainees without assessing each case individually. The consent decree “carefully maps out what the district judge can or cannot order” to balance enforcement and public safety, according to the opinion. But the ruling also said the Trump administration wrongly categorized all immigrant arrestees as subject to mandatory detention.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said they were disheartened by the ruling but glad the court upheld the extension of the agreement, which among other things requires ICE to show documentation for each arrest it makes. Federal judges elsewhere including in Colorado have also ruled to limit warrantless arrests.

Attorneys pushed for a quick decision, saying many are being deported without knowing their options. The hundreds of detainees, mostly from the Chicago area, were arrested from summer through the early weeks of the “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration crackdown in the fall. Attorneys have said they have collected information on hundreds of more people they believe were also improperly arrested.

“We will work tirelessly to ensure that people who were unlawfully arrested will be able to return to their families and communities as soon as possible,” said Keren Zwick with the National Immigrant Justice Center.

A message left Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned.

The consent decree, which expired earlier this year, was extended until February. The federal government tried to challenge the extension in court.

The agreement was originally reached between immigrant rights groups and the federal government following a lawsuit over 2018 immigration sweeps. It applies to immigrants arrested in six states covered by the ICE field office in Chicago. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

BALTIMORE (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia was due to check-in with immigration authorities on Friday, some 14 hours after he was released from detention on a judge’s orders.

Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown earlier this year when he was wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. He was last taken into custody in August during a similar check-in.

Kilmar Abrego García arrives to his home in Beltsville, Md., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, after being released from ICE custody. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Abrego Garcia, who was scheduled to appear at the Baltimore Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, first stopped at a news conference outside the building, escorted by a group of supporters chanting “We are all Kilmar!”

“I stand before you a free man and I want you to remember me this way, with my head held up high,” Abrego Garcia said through a translator. “I come here today with so much hope and I thank God who has been with me since the start with my family.”

He urged people to keep fighting.

“I stand here today with my head held high and I will continue to fight and stand firm against all of the injustices this government has done upon me,” Abrego Garcia said. “Regardless of this administration, I believe this is a country of laws and I believe that this injustice will come to an end.”

After Abrego Garcia spoke, he went through security at the field office, escorted by supporters.

The agency freed him just before 5 p.m. on Thursday in response to a ruling from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland, who wrote federal authorities detained him after his return to the United States without any legal basis.

Mistakenly deported and then returned

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years. He immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager to join his brother, who had become a U.S. citizen. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, where he faces danger from a gang that targeted his family.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been moved several times since his arrest in March. (AP Digital Embed)

While he was allowed to live and work in the U.S. under ICE supervision, he was not given residency status. Earlier this year, he was mistakenly deported and held in a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison despite having no criminal record.

Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, Trump’s Republican administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and asked a federal judge there to dismiss them.

A lawsuit to block removal from the US

The 2019 settlement found he had a “well founded fear” of danger in El Salvador if he was deported there. So instead ICE has been seeking to deport him to a series of African countries. Abrego Garcia has sued, claiming the Trump administration is illegally using the removal process to punish him for the public embarrassment caused by his deportation.

In her order releasing Abrego Garcia, Xinis wrote that federal authorities “did not just stonewall” the court, “They affirmatively misled the tribunal.” Xinis also rejected the government’s argument that she lacked jurisdiction to intervene on a final removal order for Abrego Garcia, because she found no final order had been filed.

ICE freed Abrego Garcia from Moshannon Valley Processing Center, about 115 miles (185 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh, on Thursday just before the deadline Xinis gave the government to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s release.

He returned home to Maryland a few hours later.

Immigration check-in

Check-ins are how ICE keeps track of some people who are released by the government to pursue asylum or other immigration cases as they make their way through a backlogged court system. The appointments were once routine but many people have been detained at their check-ins since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

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Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said he’s prepared to defend his client against further deportation efforts.

“The government still has plenty of tools in their toolbox, plenty of tricks up their sleeve,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said, adding he fully expects the government to again take steps to deport his client. “We’re going to be there to fight to make sure there is a fair trial.”

The Department of Homeland Security sharply criticized Xinis’ order and vowed to appeal, calling the ruling “naked judicial activism” by a judge appointed during the Obama administration.

“This order lacks any valid legal basis, and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary.

Sandoval-Moshenberg said the judge made it clear that the government can’t detain someone indefinitely without legal authority and that his client “has endured more than anyone should ever have to.”

Abrego Garcia has also applied for asylum in the U.S. in immigration court.

Charges in Tennessee

Abrego Garcia was hit with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling charges when the U.S. government brought him back from El Salvador. Prosecutors alleged he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.

The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

A Department of Homeland Security agent testified at an earlier hearing that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.

By LEAH WILLINGHAM and LAURA BARGFELD, Associated Press

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — One baby Jesus lays in a manger in the snow, wrapped in a silver emergency blanket with his wrists zip-tied. Mary stands nearby outside the Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois, wearing a plastic gas mask and flanked by Roman soldiers in tactical vests labeled “ICE.”

An “ICE WAS HERE” sign is posted in the spot for the baby Jesus at a nativity display at St. Susanna Church, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, in Dedham, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

In another Chicago suburb, not far from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility that has drawn protests over detentions, a sign at the manger outside the Urban Village Church says “Due to ICE activity in our community the Holy Family is in hiding.” And more than a thousand miles away, the Christ child went missing from a Nativity scene at St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, replaced by a hand-painted sign: “ICE was here.”

These and other stark reimaginings of Christ’s birth are drawing praise and outrage as churches turn the Christmas tableau into a commentary on federal immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Their creators say they are placing the ancient story in a contemporary frame, portraying the Holy Family as refugees to reflect on the fear of separation and deportation that many families — including their own parishioners — are experiencing today.

Supporters of the displays say the Bible is on their side, but critics call the scenes sacrilegious and politically divisive, accusing the churches of abusing sacred imagery and some arguing they should lose their tax-exempt status. The archdiocese in Massachusetts ordered that the manger must be “restored to its proper sacred purpose.”

The debate comes as immigration enforcement intensifies in states and cities whose leaders object to the immigration crackdown. In September alone, a combined total of at least 2,000 people were arrested in Illinois and Massachusetts, according to federal arrest figures released by immigration authorities.

‘A grave scandal for Catholics’

For churches, Christmas is a time “when we have public art out on the lawn and we get an opportunity to say something,” said Rev. Michael Woolf, senior minister at Lake Street. Another Nativity scene created by the Baptist congregation one recent year showed Jesus in rubble — a “plea for peace” in Gaza, he said.

St. Susanna parishioners locked baby Jesus in a cage in 2018 to protest how President Donald Trump’s first administration was separating families at the border. Another year, they depicted the infant floating in water polluted with plastic to highlight climate change.

A mannequin representing the Mother Mary wears a mask in the Nativity scene outside of Lake Street Church of Evanston, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Boston Archbishop Richard Henning ordered this year’s display taken down. As of Thursday, Father Steve Josoma was seeking a meeting and had yet to comply.

“The people of God have the right to expect that, when they come to church, they will encounter genuine opportunities for prayer and Catholic worship — not divisive political messaging,” a diocesan spokesperson said.

Some Catholic activists want the priest punished.

“This is really a grave scandal for Catholics, and I think he’s playing with fire,” said C.J. Doyle, director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. “The archbishop can remove him as pastor, suspend him from active ministry — he can even close the parish and sell the property right out from under him.”

The community’s reality

Josoma said the display’s purpose is to move “beyond static traditional figures and evoke emotion and dialogue” in response to the fear many parishioners face as federal forces arrest more than undocumented immigrants, sweeping up longtime legal residents and spreading anxiety.

A sign of explanation is part of the Nativity scene outside of Lake Street Church of Evanston, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

In Illinois, the detention campaign has left bystanders choking on chemical sprays and children traumatized at the site of neighbors and teachers being taken away, prompting state and local investigations.

“We wanted to reflect sort of the reality that our community is experiencing,” Jillian Westerfield, associate minister at the United Methodist church in Evanston.

After the figure of Joseph blew down and was damaged, leaving Mary alone with the baby, they put up an explanatory sign: “Joseph didn’t make it. We hold this spaced to honor and remember all the victims of immigration enforcement terror.”

Critics either don’t fully understand the message or “find it really challenging to their conscience and are lashing out at the art rather than engaging with what the actual message is,” Westerfield said.

‘Not a stunt’

Phil Mandeville, who sits on St. Susanna’s Parish Council and coordinates a multi-church refugee support committee, said long-standing relationships make the parish resolute about keeping the display.

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The committee has worked with about 10 refugee families since 2019, helping them find housing, enroll in school, learn English and secure work. Much of the effort is done in partnership with the federal government, which puts families through extensive vetting before they arrive, he said.

“Just to emphasize the reason for all of this — it’s not a stunt,” Mandeville said. “We work on a daily basis with refugees. But people get upset about a bit of plaster. I care more about individuals than I do a manger scene. I understand what it represents — I don’t understand why no one cares about these human beings.”

“Look at the Gospel just before Christ was executed — that was political,” he added. “We were always taught: when you’re unsure how to act, ask, ‘What would Christ do?’ Now we’re doing that, and it doesn’t seem to jibe.”

Divided reaction

The controversy in Evanston drew volunteers from a nearby synagogue, who stood outside during Lake Street’s services to help worshippers feel safe. Reactions outside the Dedham church ranged widely.

Walter Niland snapped a selfie and said he disagreed with the display. “I believe that the church enjoys a tax-exempt status,” said Niland, a Catholic from a neighboring town. “We should speak to spiritual matters, not matters of political division.”

Others came to challenge the parish directly — including one man who livestreamed his attempt to pull on locked church doors.

Steve Grieger, a former Catholic schoolteacher, drove an hour from Worcester to show his support.

“The Archdiocese says, ‘Oh no, that goes against our tradition.’ Well, we’re living in times that are totally abnormal. We can’t just proceed as normal,” Grieger said. “If we’re following the scriptures of Jesus, then we have to recognize that these ICE raids, and all of these terrible things going on, are totally against that.”

Bargfeld reported from Evanston.