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For Immediate Release
October, 06 2025, 12:42pm EDT
Contact:
Linda Benesch, lbenesch@socialsecurityworks.org
Trump’s Latest Insult to Social Security: A Part-Time Commissioner
The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, on this morning’s announcement that Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano will also serve as CEO of the IRS:
“Frank Bisignano is so underqualified for the job of Social Security commissioner that his first move was to google ‘Social Security’. Bisignano’s decision to take on a second job running the IRS highlights that he has learned nothing. It also puts the lie to Donald Trump’s claim that he won’t hurt Social Security.
The Trump administration has already plunged Social Security into crisis by pushing out thousands of the most experienced, knowledgeable workers. They are causing chaos and real harm, including ending paper checks for Americans who have previously shown they need them. Now, Bisignano’s divided attention will create a bottleneck that makes the inevitable problems that arise even harder to correct.
Never in Social Security’s 90-year history has a commissioner held a second job. Bisiginano’s new role will leave a leadership vacuum at the top of the agency, especially since Trump hasn’t even nominated a deputy commissioner.
It always takes less time and effort to destroy something than to build and maintain it. By denying the system a full time commissioner, the Trump administration is allowing Social Security to rot through sabotage and neglect.”
Social Security Works' mission is to: Protect and improve the economic security of disadvantaged and at-risk populations; Safeguard the economic security of those dependent, now or in the future, on Social Security; and Maintain Social Security as a vehicle of social justice.
LATEST NEWS
UK Grants Police New Powers to Crush Peaceful Protests as Palestine Action Demonstrations Continue
"Just because you have freedom doesn’t mean you have to use it at every moment of every day," said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood after hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were arrested.
Oct 06, 2025
After the British government's ban on the group Palestine Action earlier this year failed to silence demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza, the UK's Home Office announced Sunday that it would give police sweeping new powers to crush peaceful protests.
Police arrested nearly 500 more pro-Palestine demonstrators on Saturday—including many Jewish activists—who participated in a protest calling for the government to "Lift the Ban" on the protest group Palestine Action, which was outlawed under Britain's anti-terrorism law in July.
Those arrested included an 83-year-old Anglican priest, the 79-year-old daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and a 79-year-old Jewish man with terminal illness, among hundreds of others who held signs in opposition to the ban as part of a "silent vigil."
That ban was instituted after members of Palestine Action were accused of vandalizing planes at a military base and has been widely criticized, including by former members of the Labour government that passed it. Even the UK’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Center acknowledged in a leaked March report revealed last month by the New York Times that the vast majority of the protest group's actions “would not be classified as terrorism.”
Prior to Saturday, more than 2,000 people had already been arrested since the ban went into effect for voicing support for the outlawed organization. Despite this, the demonstrations have continued, and the Home Office, which handles matters of public safety, announced Sunday that more drastic measures would be taken.
It said police forces would be given new powers under the UK's existing policing law, the Public Order Act, to put new conditions on "repeat protests" and allow senior police authorities to relocate or "to ban protests outright" based on their "cumulative impact."
"The right to protest is a fundamental freedom in our country. However, this freedom must be balanced with the freedom of their neighbours to live their lives without fear," said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. "Large, repeated protests can leave sections of our country, particularly religious communities, feeling unsafe, intimidated, and scared to leave their homes. This has been particularly evident in relation to the considerable fear within the Jewish community, which has been expressed to me on many occasions in these recent difficult days."
In the wake of the deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue last week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had called on the group Defend Our Juries (DOJ) to call off Saturday's demonstration in order to "respect the grief of British Jews this week.”
But DOJ organizers said in a statement Friday that "many Jewish supporters of Defend Our Juries have warned that postponing tomorrow’s action would risk conflating the actions of the state of Israel with Jewish people around the world, as [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu seeks to do, who bear no responsibility for Israel’s crimes, which could fuel antisemitic hatred and prejudice."
Other leading Jewish figures in Britain have denounced the UK's criminalization of Palestine Action. In August, more than 300 of them, including Jenny Manson, chairperson of Jewish Voice for Labour, signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper denouncing the ban as “illegitimate and unethical.”
According to a poll by YouGov in July, 37% of British people said that in the Israel-Palestine conflict, they sympathized more with the Palestinians, while just 15% said they sympathized more with the Israelis. Others said they sympathized with both equally or were unsure.
In a widely circulated BBC News interview on Sunday, Mahmood defended the Home Office's new restrictions on the basis that it was distasteful for DOJ to protest against Israel at a time when Jewish people were in mourning and that police should have the ability to intervene in such protests.
"I don't think it's offensive to ask people to show a little humanity towards a community that's suffered a terrible tragedy. That's the first loss of Jewish life, simply for being Jewish, on British soil in centuries," she said. "Just because you have a freedom doesn’t mean you have to use it at every moment of every day."
DOJ responded in a post on X: "This is what the home secretary thinks of democracy. Your freedoms are only freedoms within a specific timeframe, a designated location, and only if permitted to be used by Shabana Mahmood. We are fighting for all our freedoms. We will not be deterred." The group has said it will only continue to escalate its protests and called for more demonstrations in November.
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Defenders of Social Security Furious Over Trump Plan for Part-Time Commissioner
"Every American who has paid into Social Security should be outraged," said one Social Security advocate.
Oct 06, 2025
The Trump administration on Monday announced that Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano would also serve as a the chief executive officer at the Internal Revenue Service, in a move that was panned by defenders of the crucial anti-poverty Social Security program.
As The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Bisignano would be filling the newly created position of CEO at the IRS, even as he retains his duties as Social Security commissioner.
According to the Journal, Bisignano "will report directly to Bessent, who will remain the formal head of the IRS as acting commissioner," and that he "will help implement the administration's vision for the IRS, which emphasizes upgraded technology and retreats from the heavier enforcement initiatives started under President Joe Biden."
Bisignano's appointment comes weeks after Billy Long, the previous IRS commissioner, got ousted from his job after working there for under two months.
Social Security advocates reacted to the move by condemning the administration for creating even more turmoil at the Social Security Administration (SSA).
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, slammed the administration for giving Bisignano added duties when he was already "unqualified" to serve as Social Security commissioner.
"Never in Social Security’s 90-year history has a commissioner held a second job," she said. "Bisignano’s new role will leave a leadership vacuum at the top of the agency, especially since Trump hasn’t even nominated a deputy commissioner."
Altman further accused the administration of "allowing Social Security to rot through sabotage and neglect" by downgrading the program's top role to part-time.
Richard Fiesta, executive director for the Alliance for Retired Americans, similarly emphasized that running the SSA was "a full-time job," and said that the Trump administration had already caused "chaos" at the agency by slashing longtime staff members.
"Every American who has paid into Social Security should be outraged," he said. "Americans pay for the workers and administration of the agency through their Social Security withholdings in every paycheck. We expect a full-time commissioner for our money. Instead, we’re now getting a part-time commissioner drawing a full salary from our Social Security taxes."
Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, described Bisignano’s appointment as "alarming news" and said it raises "major concerns."
Specifically, Romig warned about potential security breaches of Americans' data at both the IRS and SSA.
"We know that from the beginning they’ve been trying to bulldoze protections of the sensitive data that each agency holds," she wrote in a post on Bluesky. "Early this year, acting heads of both SSA and Treasury were both pushed out over data access"
She then pointed to reports that the Department of Government Efficiency has been working on a "data lake" that uses sensitive information from both agencies "to track and surveil undocumented immigrants" residing in the US.
"This unprecedented arrangement cries out for meaningful oversight to ensure that each agency adequately serves the public, conflicts of interest are resolved, and our most sensitive data are protected," she said.
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Lawsuits Target Trump, Noem to Beat Back Federal 'War on Chicago'
"Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale," says a suit filed by Illinois and Chicago.
Oct 06, 2025
As President Donald Trump continues to terrorize Chicago and its suburbs with the anti-immigrant Operation Midway Blitz, the city, the state of Illinois, journalists, and protesters on Monday filed a pair of federal lawsuits against the administration's "invasion."
The White House confirmed Saturday that the president authorized 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to "protect federal officers and assets" in Chicago, and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said Sunday that Trump is also "ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States."
Following a federal judge's ruling against Trump deploying Oregon National Guard troops over protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Chicago and Illinois sued Trump; the US Army and its secretary, Daniel Driscoll; and the departments of Defense and Homeland Security and their respective secretaries, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem.
"The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly for the reason that their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president's favor," Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement. "I am absolutely committed to upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law, which is why my office is both challenging and seeking an order to stop unlawful National Guard deployment in Illinois."
Mary Richardson-Lowry, the city of Chicago's top lawyer, said that "I stand with the attorney general in challenging the Trump administration's illegal deployment of the National Guard. This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law."
Another suit stemming from the administration's violent actions in Illinois was filed in the same court Monday morning, by journalists and peaceful protesters challenging First Amendment violations at an ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, where federal agents have made headlines for firing a chemical agent at a reporter's vehicle "absolutely unprovoked" and throwing a congressional candidate to the ground.
"The federal government has sent federal forces to cities across the United States in order to prevent the press, elected officials, religious leaders, and civilians engaged in peaceful protest from exercising their First Amendment rights," states that complaint. "All over the country, federal agents have shot, gassed, and detained individuals engaged in cherished and protected activities."
"Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale or usurped states' police power by directing federal agents to carry out an illegal mission against the people for the government's own benefit," the filing continues.
"This lawsuit concerns the right of the demonstrator plaintiffs to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully protest and to exercise their religion in the area around the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, and in other places where demonstrators are opposing the administration's federal incursion into the Chicagoland area," the complaint adds. "And it concerns the rights of the journalist plaintiffs to observe, record, and report on the federal agents' activities and the public’s demonstrations against them."
In this case, Loevy + Loevy, the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of Chicago School of Law, First Defense Legal Aid, Protect Democracy, and the ACLU of Illinois are representing protesters, individual journalists, and media organizations, including the outlet Block Club Chicago.
Since September 19, Block Club Chicago has dedicated many of its resources to covering the protests at the Broadview building and ICE's brutal response, said executive editor and co-founder Stephanie Lulay in a statement.
"During that time, at least four of our employees or freelancers have told me that they were hit with pepper balls and subjected to tear gas by federal agents at Broadview," she said. "We intend to continue to report on the protests, but our ability to do so, to the standards that we hold ourselves to, continues to be impacted by our fears of violence and arrests of our employees and contractors."
Plaintiff David Black, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, said that ICE responded to his peaceful expression of his religion by spraying tear gas in his face and repeatedly shooting him in the head with near-lethal projectiles.
"I extended my arms, palms outstretched toward the ICE officers, in a traditional Christian posture of prayer and blessing," he pastor detailed. "Without any warning, and without any order or request that I and others disperse, I was suddenly fired upon by ICE officers. In rapid fire, I was hit seven times on my arms, face, and torso with exploding pellets that contained some kind of chemical agent. It was clear to me that the officers were aiming for my head, which they struck twice."
In this case, the plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order "against the government's violent suppression of free speech," their attorneys explained. "A similar motion was filed and granted in Los Angeles last month, after federal troops deployed the same sorts of tactics against journalists and protesters."
Separately on Monday, Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order establishing "ICE-free zones," barring the agency from using "city-owned or controlled parking lots, vacant lots, and garages as staging areas, processing locations, or operations bases."
During a press conference, Johnson pointed to various recent incidents, including last week's immigration raid of a South Shore building "managed by a slumlord," in which agents "terrorized" residents, including unclothed children, in the middle of the night, as well as ICE's fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez last month in the suburb of Franklin Park.
"We have a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed, masked individuals roaming throughout our city that are not accountable to the people of Chicago. Their actions put all Chicagoans at risk," he declared. "The Trump administration must end the war on Chicago."
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