Social Compact: DC City Council Member-at-Large Robert White met with NASW Metro DC staff to learn more about a potential DC social work social compact and to officially accept his 2025 Legislator of the Year Award last week. While the focus of City Council has been on creating and passing an amended version of Mayor Bowser’s proposed budget, White agreed to discuss potential license mobility legislation with his own staff and requested additional materials. The chapter and its hired lobbyist will continue to provide resources and gather support for potential legislation early in the next fiscal year. Twenty-eight states have now passed a social compact law, and the Social Compact Commission “is on track to begin offering multi-state licenses in 2026.”
Social Work Employment: In a surprise move July 7, the Department of Veterans Affairs—the largest federal employer of social workers in the nation--says it will no longer need to cut the previously stated goal of 83,000 jobs and will instead be able to operate efficiently once nearly 30,000 positions are eliminated by the end of this fiscal year through so-called “natural attrition,” deferred early retirements, and its hiring freeze. The severe cuts—required under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) formerly led by Elon Musk—sparked tremendous pushback from NASW, veterans, workers, and military supporters who feared veterans’ behavioral and physical health care would be degraded.
Medicaid/Medicare: With the support that your membership makes possible, NASW released a statement that it will continue to push lawmakers to replace the more than $1 trillion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts signed into law July 4 by President Trump with policies that meet basic needs and uphold dignity for all.
Immigration: Families of undocumented DC migrants fear that detained loved ones are among the detainees being or already transferred to the already notorious immigration detention center built on Florida public land in the Everglades through the use of government emergency powers. The hastily built facility opened recently despite massive public and officials’ outcries about poor construction, frequent flooding, lack of environmental impact studies, 24-hour lighting, and the declared reliance on dangerous wildlife to threaten and prevent detainees from escaping. Reports arose July 8 about serious human rights abuses occurring in center such as psychological torture and deprivation of water, medical care, sleep, and uncontaminated food.
President Trump removed temporary protection status (TPS) this week for Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Hondurans, many of whom had lived and worked in the U.S. for decades, have U.S.-born children and spouses, and now have 60 days to self-deport. A CBS News analysis of data from the Department of Homeland Security—one of the federal partners in the coalition—found that only 8% of the 59,000 detained immigrants had records of criminal violence. Regardless, detentions of immigrants facing only civil versus criminal immigration charges rose 250% in May after White House Adviser Stephen Miller set a new goal of 3,000 arrests a day.
Reproductive Justice: Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit July 7 against the Trump administration to try to stop implementation of a provision in the newly signed domestic budget law that would halt Medicaid payments to all abortion providers for a year and put 200 of its health centers at risk of closing. A U.S. District Court judge granted a temporary injunction against the provision the same day. “This case is about making sure that patients who use Medicaid as their insurance to [receive these services] can continue to do so,” said President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). “… No politician should decide who gets health care and who doesn’t. These are personal, private decisions between patients and their providers,” a position long advocated for by NASW and NASW Metro DC. Not helping is that the U.S. Supreme Court decided June 26 to allow a South Carolina law to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.