A deadlocked Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a decision blocking an Oklahoma Catholic school from participating in the state’s charter school program.

The 4-4 decision upholds the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision to ban the Oklahoma City-based St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School from being eligible. It was unclear how the justices voted, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case.

The case pitted the Catholic school against Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who sued the school after the state’s charter school board voted to approve St. Isidore’s participation. Drummond argued that allowing religious schools to take part in the program would force taxpayers to fund schools with religious beliefs they did not support.

“The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of my position that we should not allow taxpayer funding of radical Islamic schools here in Oklahoma. I am proud to have fought against this potential cancer in our state, and I will continue upholding the law, protecting our Christian values and defending religious liberty,” Drummond posted on X after the decision from the court was released.

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the school and charter board argued that Oklahoma discriminated based on religion.

“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” ADF chief legal counsel Jim Campbell said. “While the Supreme Court’s order is disappointing for educational freedom, the 4-4 decision does not set precedent, allowing the court to revisit this issue in the future. The U.S. Supreme Court has been clear that when the government creates programs and invites groups to participate, it can’t single out religious groups for exclusion, and we will continue our work to protect this vital freedom for parents and students.”

A win for St. Isidore would have struck down a provision of the Oklahoma Charter School Act that expressly forbids religious charter schools and could open the door for more religious charter schools across the country.

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In previous decisions, such as Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court sided with religious organizations that had been locked out of state programs based on their religious nature. In Carson, the Supreme Court struck down a ban in Maine on vouchers from going toward religious schools.

During oral arguments, several justices on the court’s conservative wing appeared to side with St. Isidore while the liberal wing signaled strong opposition.

“You can’t treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class in the United States,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, adding that excluding religious schools “seems like rank discrimination.”

WASHINGTON—Border Czar Tom Homan is celebrating the passage of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” reconciliation bill, arguing in an interview with The Daily Wire that the bill is pivotal to protecting the southern border and empowering border authorities to do their jobs.

“We’ve made a lot of progress on the border, but we want to keep it permanent,” he told The Daily Wire outside the White House Wednesday, ahead of the bill’s passage. “We need the money, not just for the border, but interior enforcement operations. Money for the border is gonna help continue building the border wall. Every place the border barrier’s been built, illegal immigration went down, illegal drug flow went down, so we gotta put more border wall up.”

The Republican-led House passed the bill in a 215 to 214 vote early Thursday morning, a significant victory for the president after back-to-back, all-night sessions in the Rules Committee and on the House floor.

The Trump administration has emphasized the massive role that the bill would play in securing the border. As he spoke with The Daily Wire on Wednesday, Homan broke down the specifics of how the bill would assist in guarding the United States from illegal entries.

There’s also technology in the existing border wall that must be implemented, Homan argued. Particularly in areas where there is not a wall, or authorities are unable to build a wall, the border czar said it is important to have the technology to “let us know when someone’s crossing the border.”

“We need the technology added to the wall so border patrol agents can communicate to one another in dead areas. It’s gonna let us know when people approach the wall, climb over the wall, dig under the wall. We need that technology. So wall and technology plus technology where there’s not a wall, right?”

“Also, technology at the ports of entry,” he added. “So trade can continue at a fast pace, but we have best technology, find drugs and other contraband coming through the ports.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also needs money, Homan pointed out.

“ICE is in the hole right now,” he explained. “They’ve got about 50,000 people in beds. We’re funded for 34,000. ICE is already in the hole, so if we want to continue this massive deportation operation, we need more money.”

He also touted the Trump administration’s success on the border thus far.

“We’re doing great. Right now, the criminals arrested by ICE are about three times higher than Joe Biden under the same timeframe, but it should be 10 times higher because Joe Biden wasn’t doing anything. So we need more money to do more.”

“People are asking, they don’t think there’s enough deportations, not enough ICE arrests,” he continued. “I agree with ’em. I’m pushing for more arrests. We need money to do it. We need more money for boots on the ground. More money for detention beds. We should have at least a hundred thousand beds.”

“We need more for transportation contracts. We need more money for contractors to do jobs that don’t require a badge and gun. A badge and gun shouldn’t be doing administrative work. We need ’em on the street wrestling bad guys. So we need money for all those things.”

Homan repeatedly emphasized that securing the border should be a bipartisan issue, noting that “there are a handful of Democrats that believe in border security and national security.”

“But as a party, you’re never gonna get every vote from every Democrat,” he noted. “‘Cause I think a lot of ’em put politics over public safety plus politics over national security.”

“I think there’s a political firestorm right now,” he explained. “I don’t think Democrats are ever gonna agree. Our success shows their failure. Our success shows the lies of the last administration saying the border is secure, showing they’re vetting everybody, and all the lies they told we’re proving ’em wrong.”

“We’re proving ’em wrong by arresting people that they released, they said were vetted. We find out they have significant criminal histories. We’re arresting national security threats every week that they said didn’t exist, and we truly secured the border. So I think our success shows their failure and they don’t wanna show that,” Homan shared.

Homan pointed out to The Daily Wire that he’s been involved with border security since 1984.

“I’ve worked for six different presidents. I’ve seen hundreds of policies come and go. I know what works, what doesn’t. What we’re doing right now is working. It’s a game changer.”

“There’s people who don’t want [us] to succeed,” he emphasized. “There’s members of Congress truly that don’t want President Trump to succeed, and I find that shocking as an American, as a taxpayer, as someone who’s dedicated 40 years to doing this, it’s shocking that every member of Congress, regardless of political opinion, why would you not want the President of the United States to succeed in securing the border and removing public safety threats and national security threats from this country?”

“Give us some money to deal with it, prove that you’re really representing your constituents,” he concluded. “Prove that you actually care about the safety and security of this country. Love your community more than you hate President Trump.”