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veterans
Trump CFPB Cancels $95 Million Settlement With Credit Union Accused of Charging Illegal 'Junk Fees'
"How many millions did this CFPB just take from servicemembers?" wrote one consumer financial protection advocate.
Jul 02, 2025
According to an order published Tuesday, the country's top financial protection watchdog nixed a $95 million settlement reached in 2024 with Navy Federal Credit Union, which serves military servicemembers, veterans, Department of Defense employees, and their families. The President Joe Biden-led Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year accused the bank of illegally charging overdraft fees to customers and ordered the credit union to refund consumers and pay a civil penalty.
Multiple observers, including a former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) employee, said that the move appears to run counter to the CFPB's stated priority of focusing "its enforcement and supervision resources on pressing threats to consumers, particularly service members and their families, and veterans."
The Tuesday order means that Navy Federal will not have to pay $80 million to impacted customers, or a $15 million civil penalty.
In November 2024, the CFPB under then-President Joe Biden said that from 2017 to 2022, the credit union charged customers "surprise overdraft fees on certain ATM withdrawals and debit card purchases, even when their accounts showed sufficient funds at the time of the transactions," in a statement announcing the $80 million refund and the civil penalty.
Then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra accused the credit union of "illegally harvested tens of millions of dollars in junk fees, including from active duty servicemembers and veterans."
The order on Tuesday is not the first time the Trump administration has canceled enforcement actions brought under the Biden-led CFPB. The Trump administration has sought to drastically cut personnel at the CFPB, which is currently led by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought.
Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, a non-profit association of pro-consumer organizations, wrote on X on Tuesday that "it doesn't square when the CFPB gives a free pass to Navy Federal for charging illegal overdraft fees AND claims it cares about servicemembers."
"How many millions did this CFPB just take from servicemembers?" he asked.
Allison Preiss, a former senior advisor to the director at the CFPB, reacted to the news by writing on X that "for months, Trump's CFPB has insisted it is focusing its efforts on protecting servicemembers and veterans," and included some screenshots of statements from the CFPB, such as a statement from May 2025 announcing that the bureau will not prioritize enforcement action related to Buy Now, Pay Later loans.
"The bureau takes this step in the interest of focusing resources on supporting hard-working American taxpayers, servicemen, veterans, and small businesses," according to that statement.
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200+ US Veterans Volunteer to Attend Asylum Court With Afghans Targeted by Trump
"This isn't political. This is personal," said one veteran. "For many of us, these are people that we served with."
Jul 01, 2025
Hundreds of U.S. military veterans have signed up to accompany Afghans who took part in the American-led invasion and occupation of their homeland to their asylum court hearings, where they face possible arrest and deportation by the Trump administration, despite having entered the United States legally and the risk of deadly Taliban retribution against them and their families should they be forced back to Afghanistan.
#AfghanEvac and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) said Tuesday that over 220 veterans have volunteered for Battle Buddies, "an initiative to support our wartime allies as they go through their immigration processes—because no one who stood with us in war should have to stand alone in court."
"Afghan wartime allies were promised a pathway to immigration to the United States based on their service to our mission over the course of our longest war," Battle Buddies said on their website. "They came through legal channels. They showed up to court as required. And now they are being targeted, arrested, and detained by ICE—with no warning, no due process, and no justification."
"That's not just wrong—it's un-American," the groups argued. "Battle Buddies brings veterans, advocates, and everyday Americans to courtroom doors—standing quietly, legally, and deliberately to witness and affirm that our promises still stand."
Speaking at a Monday press conference, IAVA CEO Kyleanne Hunter said: "This isn't political. This is personal. For many of us, these are people that we served with."
Battle Buddies was launched after the June 12 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of former Afghan interpreter and logistics contractor Sayed Naser Noori at a San Diego courthouse following a routine asylum hearing. When U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, Naser went into hiding in his home country while awaiting the issuance of a special U.S. visa for Afghans who helped the American military.
After the Taliban murdered one of his brothers in 2023 for collaborating with the occupation, Naser applied for U.S. asylum and was granted humanitarian parole to enter the United States while his asylum case was processed. But he was arrested anyway under the Trump administration's mass deportation effort after a judge dismissed his asylum case. The administration then fast-tracked his deportation.
An Afghan ally who served alongside U.S. forces was legally paroled into the U.S. and showed up for his first hearing.DHS detained him anyway—using a vague “improvidently issued” excuse.He followed the rules.We have the video.This must stop.#AfghanEvac #DueProcess
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— afghanevac.bsky.social (@afghanevac.bsky.social) June 13, 2025 at 3:06 PM
As Military.com reported Monday, Naser's last hope is a so-called "credible fear" interview, which he has requested. Although immigration officials have acknowledged his right to such a hearing—without which he cannot be legally deported—one has noto yet been scheduled.
"To the American government: I believed in you. I worked with you. I helped you for years, side by side. I trusted your words and followed your rules," Naser said in a statement read at Monday's news conference. "You say that people like me should come legally. I did. And now I am locked away."
"To President Trump, I love America, and I was building a life here," Naser's statement continued. "I had a car. I had a bank account. I had a job. Who will take care of all that now that I'm in detention? Instead of locking us away with no warning, why not offer us a shelter or some support?"
"There are better ways than treating people like criminals," he added, "especially those who stood with you during war."
"You say that people like me should come legally. I did. And now I am locked away."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) falsely claimed last month that "there is *no* record to show that [Naser] assisted the U.S. government in any capacity."
Speaking at Monday's news conference, #AfghanEvac founder Shawn VanDiver said that DHS is "full of shit."
VanDiver noted that DHS "has said Sayed was not vetted, DHS has said that there's no evidence that Sayed served alongside our country."
"Both of those things are lies—knowable lies," he added. "They know that they're not telling the truth."
Indeed, media outlets including Military.com and San Diego's KPBS reported that they have verified that Naser and his brothers worked with the U.S. military during the occupation.
While Naser is the first publicly known Afghan collaborator to be arrested while following procedure at a courthouse, he is far from the only one facing removal from the U.S. under the Trump administration's draconian deportation drive. Thousands of Afghans who fled the Taliban reconquest of their homeland now fear they will be forcibly returned to Afghanistan, where at least hundreds of people who served as soldiers, government officials, police, contractors, or other collaborators have been killed by the Taliban, according to United Nations officials and human rights groups.
The situation worsened after the Trump administration in May revoked temporary protected status (TPS) for more than 8,000 Afghans and then designated Afghanistan as one of the countries subject to a new travel ban.
Shir Agha Safi, executive director of Afghan Partners in Iowa, a Des Moines-based nonprofit, recently told The Guardian that some Afghans facing deportation "would choose suicide over being tortured and killed by the Taliban."
"They have said this because the Taliban is still there and if you send an Afghan back to Afghanistan that would mean a death penalty," Safi added.
"This decision endangers thousands of lives, including Afghans who stood by the United States."
However, ignoring the many Afghan collaborators killed by the Taliban, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed in a recent statement that "Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent[s] them from returning to their home country."
The termination of TPS for Afghans prompted bipartisan rebuke, with U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) appealing last month to Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"This decision endangers thousands of lives, including Afghans who stood by the United States," the senators wrote. "This decision represents a historic betrayal of promises made and undermines the values we fought for far more than 20 years in Afghanistan."
Murkowski and Shaheen warned that cutting off TPS status for Afghans "exposes these individuals to the very real threat of persecution, violence, and even death under Taliban rule."
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‘We’re Being Lied To’: Veterans Protest Trump’s March to War With Iran
Veterans groups are urging members of Congress to invoke the War Powers Act to stop the president from launching an unauthorized attack on Iran.
Jun 19, 2025
As the Trump administration threatens imminent war with Iran, veterans of other destructive American wars are sounding the alarm.
As protests broke out across American cities on Wednesday, veterans in cities such as Portland, Oregon and San Antonio, Texas have joined a growing chorus of national anger about the prospect of another Middle Eastern war and called on Democratic leaders to act swiftly to invoke the War Powers Act.
The demonstrations have been organized by groups like About Face, which describes itself as "post-9/11 military members and veterans organizing to end a foreign policy of permanent war," and Veterans for Peace, "a global organization of military veterans" that seeks to "inform the public of the true causes of war and the enormous costs of wars."
On Wednesday evening, a group of protesters gathered outside the Portland office of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
One member of the group, who identified himself as Chris, described the parallels to the Iraq War over two decades ago.
"We saw 20 years ago, we were lied to about weapons of mass destruction with Iraq. And we're being lied to about weapons of mass destruction again with Iran," Chris told KATU-TV, an ABC affiliate.
He called on Congress to invoke the War Powers Act.
"Congress is the branch of government that's supposed to be declaring war, not the executive branch unilaterally," he said.
Following Israel's airstrikes against Iran last week, Wyden called for "diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program," adding that Americans "do not want U.S. troops to be dragged into another war in the Middle East." However, he stopped short of co-signing Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) No War Against Iran Act, which would ban the use of federal funds to fight Iran without congressional authorization.
Oregon's other senator, Jeff Merkley, has called for Congress to invoke its war powers.
"It's long past time for Congress to reassert its constitutional role and prevent another disastrous conflict," Merkley said in a statement signing onto Sanders' bill.
About Face held another demonstration in San Antonio on Wednesday night alongside the Party for Socialism & Liberation, where the message was much the same.
"These criminal, genocidal lies killed over a million people, ruined countless lives, wrecked the legitimacy of the United States at home and abroad," the group's South Texas chapter wrote in an Instagram post comparing the current conflict to the war in Iraq.
In recent weeks, veterans' groups have been increasingly outspoken against the Trump administration. According to a June 3 poll from Data for Progress, 70 percent said they opposed his use of active-duty troops in this past weekend's military parade. More than 50 veterans were also arrested protesting the spectacle in Washington, D.C.
That same survey also found that just 10% of veterans believed the U.S. should send more troops to the Middle East, compared with 47% who said there should be fewer.
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