President Trump signed executive orders Monday threatening to upend the fledgling “cashless bail” policies that major cities including Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago have embraced in recent years.

“Cashless bail — we’re ending it, but we’re starting by ending it in D.C.,” Trump told reporters during a signing event in the Oval Office. “We have the right to do [that] through federalization.”

One executive order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to review state and local jurisdictions’ bail policies and submit her findings to the White House in 30 days for review. It further allows members of the administration to review and potentially revoke federal funds given to those jurisdictions that maintain cashless release for some offenders.

“Our great law enforcement officers risk their lives to arrest potentially violent criminals, only to be forced to arrest the same individuals, sometimes for the same crimes, while they await trial on the previous charges,” Trump wrote in his order. “This is a waste of public resources and a threat to public safety.”

Trump signed a separate order specifically for Washington, D.C., that directs the newly formed D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force to “work to ensure that arrestees in the District of Columbia are held in Federal custody to the fullest extent permissible” and to pursue “pretrial detention for such arrestees whenever possible.”

It also directs Bondi to work with federal agencies to “identify appropriate actions to press the District of Columbia to change its policies with respect to cashless bail.”

Trump wrote in the D.C.-specific order that cashless bail policies allow “criminals free to endanger American citizens visiting our Nation’s capital, Federal workers discharging their duties to our Nation, and citizens of the District of Columbia trying to live their lives safely.”

The president signed a sweeping public safety emergency declaration in Washington, D.C., earlier this month that has allowed the federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital. The Trump administration has additionally sent in law enforcement officers from various federal agencies, including those under the Justice Department, like the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

What is ‘cashless bail’?

Trump explained the bail reform push in its simplest form when he signed the orders Monday: “No cash. Come back in a couple of months, we’ll give you a trial,” the president said, adding the potential outcome is: “You never see the person again.”

Bail is the money defendants pay to secure their release from jail while awaiting trial after they’ve been accused of a crime. It’s often set by judges based on risk assessments and other factors. It is not intended to be punitive, as people posting bail have not been convicted. It is a system meant to ensure that defendants will appear in court, and the money is returned after the court case ends.

Under “cashless” pretrial release policies, accused offenders do not have to pay bail in some cases. The laws vary by state and jurisdiction, but they often are targeted to lower-level and non-violent charges.

The Bail Project, a nonpartisan group that favors cashless bail policies, and other advocates have argued that requiring defendants to pay to get out of jail is unfair and disproportionately harms low-income people.

“Cash bail creates a two-tiered system of justice: one where people with money are able to purchase their pretrial freedom, allowing them to maintain their jobs, contribute to the economy, and care for their families; and another system for everyone else,” the Bail Project wrote in a March report on policies across the country. “The use of cash bail is unfair, affording benefits to people with financial resources, and punishing others.”

What does the research show?

Recent research on the impact of cashless bail systems has been limited and is complicated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which saw a crime surge in many areas, as well as efforts to reduce jail populations to stop the spread of the highly contagious outbreak.

The New York City Comptroller’s Office analyzed bail data from 2019 to 2021 – information that covers the time before bail reform and immediately after — and found that pretrial rearrest rates in the city were about the same pre- and post-bail reform.

The number of people subject to bail plummeted from nearly 25,000 people to less than 15,000 in that period. The comptroller’s office also found that even after the reforms, about half of defendants with bail set were able to post it. Average bail amounts during that period went up – from about $19,100 in 2019 to about $38,800 in 2021.

President Trump is facing outcry from some of his supporters after saying he plans to allow 600,000 students from China into the U.S.

“It’s a very important relationship. We’re going to get along good with China,” Trump told reporters Monday during a meeting with the president of South Korea. 

“I hear so many stories about we’re not going to allow their students,” he continued. “We’re going to allow their students to come in. We’re going to allow it. It’s very important, 600,000 students. It’s very important.”

Trump’s comments marked a shift from earlier in the year, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he planned to “aggressively” revoke visas from Chinese students, particularly those “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

The president’s openness to welcoming hundreds of thousands of Chinese students did not sit well with some members of his base, who questioned how it aligned with Trump’s “America First” mantra.

“We should not let in 600,000 CHINESE students to attend American colleges and universities that may be loyal to the CCP,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted on social platform X.

“Why are we allowing 600,000 students from China to replace our American student’s opportunities?” Greene added. “We should never allow that. And we need more trade school graduates.”

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and staunch Trump ally who has influenced policy and personnel decisions in the administration, also expressed her displeasure with the move in a series of posts on social media.

“Nobody, I repeat nobody, wants 600,000 more Chinese ‘students’ aka Communist spies in the United States,” Loomer posted on X.

“China murdered 1.2 million Americans,” she added, a reference to the COVID-19 virus that originated in China. “Now they get to replace us? This cannot happen.”

Michael Flynn Jr., the son of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, posted online that Trump’s comments were “Not what I voted for…”

Fox News host Laura Ingraham raised the issue with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during her show on Monday night.

“Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, how is allowing 600,000 students from the communist country of China putting America first?” Ingraham asked, noting it’s been a long-running issue for conservatives.

Lutnick argued without the 600,000 Chinese students, U.S. students would go to better schools with openings created by the lack of foreign students and “the bottom 15 percent of universities and colleges would go out of business in America.”

Trump’s comments came as he has touted the relationship he has with Chinese President Xi Jinping during trade negotiations between the U.S. and Beijing. The two sides levied huge tariffs on goods earlier this year, but brought the rates down significantly amid ongoing talks.

Trump told reporters Monday that he hoped to visit China later this year or “shortly thereafter.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) warned President Trump against sending National Guard troops to Chicago, after the president suggested last week that the Democratic-run city could be his next target.

“Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, ‘Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?’” Pritzker said Monday at a press conference, surrounded by state and local Democratic leaders.

“Instead, I say, ‘Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here,’” he added.

Trump has mused publicly about sending troops to the Windy City as part of his effort to combat crime in Democratic cities nationwide. National Guard soldiers, some armed, have been patrolling the nation’s capital since earlier this month — and the White House has provided consistent updates on its impact, including a running list of arrests and seizures.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Pentagon for weeks has been planning a military deployment to Chicago. The proposal could involve several options, the Post reported, including sending a few thousand members of the National Guard as soon as September to patrol the city’s streets.

Pritzker called the move “exactly the type of overreach that our country’s founders warned against.”

“What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted,” he said. “It is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is un-American.”

The Illinois governor, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, said that no one from the Trump administration has contacted state officials to try and coordinate a joint law enforcement response.

“If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor or the police?” Pritzker asked at the press conference.

“Let me answer that question,” the Democrat continued. “This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city in a blue state to try and intimidate his political rivals.”