The Standing Record
A non-partisan record of US democratic norms —3 entries on this date.
The United States and Cabo Verde signed an "Agreement on the Transfer of Third-Country Nationals" at Praia on November 19, 2025, which entered into force the same day, allowing the U.S. to propose sending asylum seekers to Cabo Verde to pursue their protection claims there. Unaccompanied minors and people with serious criminal or gang histories are excluded, and no transfers had occurred as of this filing.
On November 19, 2025, HHS's Office of Head Start sent a Wisconsin Head Start program director two emails instructing her to remove specific words from a funding application and then providing a list of nearly 200 words and phrases "to limit or avoid," including "disability," "women," "Black," "Native American," and "tribal." The list surfaced publicly in December 2025 through a declaration filed in an ongoing multi-state lawsuit against HHS and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and several of the banned terms describe categories the Head Start Act itself requires programs to serve and report on, including disability status and Tribal consultation. A federal judge temporarily blocked the practice on January 7, 2026.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged then-Braselton Police Chief Michael Steffman on November 19, 2025, with stalking, harassing communications, violation of oath of office, and multiple counts of misusing automated license-plate-reader data, hours after he announced his resignation. The GBI found Steffman had used the Flock camera network to run roughly 600 unauthorized searches on his ex-girlfriend's and her daughter's license plates between July 2024 and August 2025, tracking her movements and texting her about them. Steffman was found dead at his home in April 2026, before the case reached trial.