National Parks Changing Fee-Free Calendar

Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, December 9, 2025…

• Californians hoping to take advantage of free entry days at national parks will see big changes next year. The Trump administration is removing civil rights holidays and adding President Trump’s birthday instead. The move is already prompting backlash from civil rights groups and conservation advocates. International visitors will also face new rules for park access. 
• The Ukrainian wife of a U.S. citizen remains in ICE custody after she was detained late last week in San Diego. Her lawyers say the arrest marks another new escalation in the Trump administration’s emerging practice of targeting immigrants at their green card interviews.

National Parks’ Fee-Free Calendar Drops MLK Day, Juneteenth And Adds Trump’s Birthday

The Trump administration has removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from next year’s calendar of entrance fee-free days for national parks and added President Trump’s birthday to the list, according to the National Park Service, as the administration continues to push back against a reckoning of the country’s racist history on federal lands.

In addition to Trump’s birthday — which coincides with Flag Day (June 14) — the updated calendar of fee-free dates includes the 110th anniversary of the NPS (August 25), Constitution Day (September 17) and President Teddy Roosevelt’s birthday (October 27). The changes will take effect starting January 1.

Non-U.S. residents will still be required to pay entrance fees on those dates under the new “America-first pricing” policy. At 11 of some of the country’s most popular national parks, international visitors will be charged an extra $100, on top of the standard entrance fee, and the annual pass for non-residents will go up to $250. The annual pass for residents will be $80.

The move follows a July executive order from the White House that called to increase fees applied to non-American visitors to national parks and grant citizens and residents “preferential treatment with respect to any remaining recreational access rules, including permitting or lottery rules.” The Department of the Interior, which oversees NPS, called the new fee-exempted dates “patriotic fee-free days,” in an announcement that lauded the changes as “Trump’s commitment to making national parks more accessible, more affordable and more efficient for the American people.”

ICE Detains Ukrainian Wife Of US Citizen Following Green Card Interview

Viktoriia Bulavina had just finished the final interview in her green card application when the officer asking questions said she needed to step out of the room. A moment later, the officer returned. Behind her were two federal agents.

The agents said they were taking Bulavina to a federal detention center according to her husband Victor Korol, who had come with her to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) building in downtown San Diego last Thursday. They handcuffed Bulavina and led her away.

The couple had worried about attending the interview. A week earlier, Bulavina’s attorneys had warned them that ICE had begun to arrest people at their green card appointments in San Diego, accusing them of overstaying their visas. But Bulavina, who fled the war in Ukraine, had entered the U.S. legally under a humanitarian program. Her attorneys said she still had legal status to be in the country. Korol, a U.S. citizen, believed his wife would be safe.

As reported by KPBS and other news outlets, federal officials have in recent weeks begun targeting immigrants coming in for green card interviews who have allegedly overstayed their visas. San Diego immigration lawyers say ICE has already arrested dozens of people who’ve come in for these interviews. Those arrests have been particularly disturbing to immigration attorneys because people who reach the interview stage of their green card application have already gone through extensive background checks and have no violent criminal history. The interview is their final step to becoming a permanent resident.

But Bulavina’s case stands apart from those previous detentions, said Caroline Matthews, a supervising attorney at the San Diego-based immigration law clinic Pathways to Citizenship. That’s because Bulavina’s legal status to be in the U.S. has never expired at any point, Matthews said, meaning federal agents would have had no possible charge to even seek her detention.