Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has played a leading role in directing US strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug boats, according to three people familiar with the situation. At times, his role has superseded that of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser. The strikes on the Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying narcotics, which the administration has claimed were necessary because interdiction did not work, have been orchestrated through the homeland security council (HSC), which Miller leads as the homeland security adviser. Miller empowered the HSC earlier this year to become its own entity in Donald Trump’s second term, a notable departure from previous administrations where it was considered part of the national security council and ultimately reported to the national security adviser. A bald man in suit glowers with arms folded The rise of Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy Read more As a result, the HSC has taken the lead on engaging the Venezuelan boats, the people said, a situation evidenced by his top deputy, Tony Salisbury, and others being the gatekeepers to details about what boat to strike until they are about to occur. That was the case for instance with the second Venezuelan boat hit with hellfire missiles on 15 September. While the White House was informed the Pentagon had identified the boat as a viable target more than four days before, many top White House officials only learned of the impending strike hours before it happened. A White House spokesperson said in a statement the strikes were directed by Trump, saying he oversaw all elements of foreign policy. “The entire administration is working together to execute the president’s directive with clear success,” the statement said. But the previously unreported role of Miller – and his massive influence with the president – also explains how striking Venezuelan boats became a major priority, and why Trump has been happy to deploy extraordinary military force to the region. The US military presence presently involves the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group – including the USS San Antonio, USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale carrying 4,500 sailors – and the 22nd marine expeditionary unit, with 2,200 marines, the Guardian has previously reported. Miller’s role also opens a window into the dubious legal justification that has been advanced for the strikes, which has been a matter of deep controversy amid allegations it amounted to extrajudicial murder in international waters. screenshot of aerial view of boats with the label ‘unclassified’ View image in fullscreen This screen grab from a video posted by Donald Trump shows what he says is US military forces conducting a strike on a boat carrying alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea on 15 September. Photograph: US President Donald Trump’s TRUTH Social account/AFP/Getty Images Since the start of the Venezuela campaign, White House officials have sought to justify the strikes internally and externally by claiming Trump was exercising his article II powers, which allows the president to use military force in self defense in limited engagements. The self defense argument revolves around Trump’s designation of Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, a claim advanced by Miller in order to defend the deportations of dozens of Venezuelans earlier this year under the Alien Enemies Act. The administration claimed that Tren de Aragua had infiltrated the regime of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro – and so the presence of the cartel’s members in the US amounted to a “predatory incursion” by a foreign nation, allowing for the deportation of any Venezuelan national. person wearing white button-down gestures while speaking behind podium and two small microphones Colombia’s Petro urges ‘criminal trial’ against Trump for Venezuelan strikes Read more “It is a drug cartel that is running Venezuela,” Miller told reporters at the White House earlier this month as he characterized Maduro as the head of the cartel. “It is not a government, it is a drug cartel, a narco-trafficking organization that is running Venezuela.” But the administration has yet to provide concrete evidence that Tren de Aragua has become an instrument of the Venezuelan government, and legal experts contacted for this story said the White House could only justify the strikes if it could make that showing. A divided three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit on 2 September ruled that deportations under the Alien Enemies Act were unlawful, because the administration had not met the high burden of showing Tren de Aragua was an arm of the Maduro regime. It remains unclear who signed off on the legal justification for the strikes. Neither the HSC nor the national security council have dedicated legal advisers like in previous administrations, after the White House started restructuring the national security council in May. But multiple people said it was approved by the Pentagon general counsel, Earl Matthews, who was until recently a Trump White House lawyer; the justice department; and the White House counsel’s office, which has a lawyer tasked with handling national security council matters. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

ICE tactics inflame tensions in New York, Chicago and other cities

ICE officer relieved of duties after woman shoved in NYC Woman detained by ICE, injured in Boston area Tear gas and pepper spray fired at protesters near Chicago CHELSEA, Massachusetts/BROADVIEW, Illinois, Sept 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. immigration officer shoving a woman in a New York City courthouse to the floor. Protesters dispersed with tear gas outside a Chicago detention center. A woman injured during an arrest in the Boston area. The incidents on Thursday and Friday highlight the growing tensions in major U.S. cities over President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown days after a shooting targeting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas left one detainee dead and two others seriously wounded. Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Report This Ad Trump, a Republican, aims to deport record numbers of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, framing the push around criminals but arresting many without criminal records. Residents in New York, Chicago, Washington, and other Democrat-leaning metro areas have pushed back in recent months as ICE has ramped up enforcement. Read more: ICE arrests Des Moines public schools superintendent Some Hispanic residents have said they are being stopped solely because of their appearance, allegations rejected by the Trump administration. The Supreme Court earlier this month lifted a lower court injunction that had restricted ICE from stopping a person based solely on ethnicity, language or other factors in the Los Angeles area. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Report This Ad Milagros Barreto, a worker advocate with La Colaborativa, a pro-immigrant group in Chelsea, Massachusetts, said she witnessed ICE throw a Guatemalan woman to the ground on Friday despite her being a permanent resident. Reuters captured images of the woman on the ground, her hands pinned behind her back, being detained by federal agents while her son stood nearby crying. Further images showed her in distress as she was taken away by emergency responders. The woman was accompanying an extended family member to a court hearing when ICE officers stopped their pickup truck, smashed two of the windows, and took the family member into custody, Barreto said. The woman's shoulder was scratched and she aggravated an existing back injury, requiring her to be hospitalized, Barreto said. She gave the woman's name only as Hilda. "It doesn't matter where you come from. If you look like a Latino, you're a target," said Barreto, a U.S. citizen originally from Puerto Rico. Reuters was unable to immediately confirm the details of Barreto's account or establish the immigration status of the woman detained. DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Item 1 of 6 Federal agents, including U.S. Marshals, FBI agents and HSI agents, detain a woman as her son reacts beside her, during an immigration enforcement raid in Chelsea, Massachusetts, U.S., September 26, 2025. The agents later released the woman at the scene because she is reportedly a legal U.S. resident and she was taken to the hospital for evaluation. REUTERS/Brian Snyder [1/6]Federal agents, including U.S. Marshals, FBI agents and HSI agents, detain a woman as her son reacts beside her, during an immigration enforcement raid in Chelsea, Massachusetts, U.S., September 26, 2025. The agents later released the woman at the scene because she is reportedly a legal U.S.... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more STANDOFFS IN MAJOR CITIES California Governor Gavin Newsom, one of the leading Democratic critics of Trump's immigration crackdown, signed legislation last week that would prevent ICE officers from wearing masks to hide their identities. Critics of mask-wearing says it stifles accountability. However, Trump officials say officers need to wear them to avoid being targeted. U.S. authorities said on Thursday that the deceased suspect in the Dallas shooting intended to kill and "terrorize" ICE agents. In a New York City courthouse hallway on Thursday, an ICE officer charged at a woman, opens new tabwho begged for officers not to take away her husband, according to ProPublica, which shared video of the incident online. The woman, Monica Moreta-Galarza from Ecuador, is seeking asylum in the U.S., ProPublica said. In a rare Trump-era rebuke of ICE, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on Friday that the officer had been "relieved of current duties" pending an investigation. "The officer's conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE," she said. DHS largely gutted its oversight offices as part of broad government layoffs and firings at the start of the Trump administration, including the office charged with investigating civil rights violations by personnel. In the Chicago suburb of Broadview on Friday, ICE used tear gas, less-lethal rounds, flash bang grenades and pepper balls to quell protests outside an immigration detention center, the latest standoff in what have become near-daily demonstrations calling to close the facility. Heavily armed ICE agents paced the rooftop of the detention facility and fired volleys of pepper-balls, pellets that shatter on impact and release clouds of pepper spray, at protesters who were chanting and holding signs. "People were peacefully standing behind the fence and for absolutely no reason, pepper balls were fired," Reverend Beth Brown, a pastor at Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church, said amid the sharp cracking sounds of rounds being fired and helicopters buzzing overhead. DHS said in a statement that "over 200 rioters" blocked access to one of the facility's gates and that 30 "swarmed another gate" and attempted to enter the property. Meanwhile in Michoacan, Mexico, the funeral was set to take place on Friday of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, who was pulled over in a Chicago suburb earlier this month and shot dead by an ICE agent. DHS has said the agent feared for his life, although in bodycam footage the agent can be heard saying that his injuries were nothing major. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

US attorney general orders deployment of Justice Department agents to ICE facilities

WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday announced the deployment of Justice Department agents to federal immigration facilities across the United States. The deployment follows a shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas, Texas. The shooting left one detainee dead. Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here. "I am also instructing the Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country to disrupt and investigate all entities and individuals engaged in acts of domestic terrorism, including the repeated acts of violence and obstruction against federal agents," Bondi wrote on X. For more information, visit is at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Who is Joshua Jahn? What we know about the Dallas ICE facility shooting

A gunman armed with a rifle opened fire on a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas on Wednesday, killing one detainee and critically wounding two others before taking his own life, authorities said. Officials reported that the shooter left behind ammunition marked with the phrase “ANTI-ICE” written in blue. The FBI is investigating the attack as an act of targeted violence. Acting ICE director Todd Lyons confirmed that the suspect identified was a man named Joshua Jahn. Recommended Stories list of 4 items list 1 of 4 Colombia blasts genocidal Israel and allies over Gaza atrocities list 2 of 4 Ukrainians horrified by killing of refugee Iryna Zarutska, US culture wars list 3 of 4 Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr deported from US: Authorities list 4 of 4 Venezuela sends troops to Colombia border as US ships join cartel operation end of list The shooting comes at a time when ICE has emerged as the sword arm of US President Donald Trump’s attempts to deport not only undocumented migrants but also legal migrants seen as critical of his administration’s priorities – including for opposing Israel’s war on Gaza. The attack on the ICE facility also comes two weeks after the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, an event that led Trump to promise action against what he called “left-wing extremists”. Here is what you need to know: What happened and when? Police said they got a call about a shooting at about 6:40am local time (11:40 GMT) on Wednesday, September 24. Four people were shot. One detainee died, and two others were taken to hospital in critical condition. The gunman – authorities described him as a “sniper” – died from a self-inflicted gunshot. Officials said he fired indiscriminately at the ICE building from a nearby rooftop. The victims were either inside a van near the entrance to the building or nearby. Advertisement Authorities “found bullets throughout the entire building that had punctured into the facility”, ICE deputy director Madison Sheahan said. A broken window is seen in this picture released on social media by Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs A broken window is seen in this picture released on social media by Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin [@TriciaOhio via Reuters] No police officers were hurt, according to FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Joe Rothrock. Sign up for Al Jazeera Americas Coverage Newsletter US politics, Canada’s multiculturalism, South America’s geopolitical rise—we bring you the stories that matter. E-mail address Subscribe By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy protected by reCAPTCHA The exact motivation for the attack was not immediately known. Still, FBI director Kash Patel described the attack as “politically motivated”. “These despicable, politically motivated attacks against law enforcement are not a one-off,” Patel said in a social media post. “We are only miles from Prairieland, Texas where just two months ago an individual ambushed a separate ICE facility targeting their officers.” On July 4, ICE said nearly a dozen individuals armed with tactical gear and weapons attacked its Prairieland facility, injuring an officer, who survived. What is ICE? ICE, or US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is a federal agency under the Department of Homeland Security that enforces immigration laws – including arresting and deporting undocumented migrants – and investigates crimes such as human trafficking, drug smuggling and financial fraud. In recent years, the agency has frequently clashed with protesters, particularly over detention conditions and deportation policies. “The Department of Homeland Security reports assaults against its officers have risen eightfold since Trump began his mass deportations,” Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro reported from Washington. Trump has made immigration enforcement a centrepiece of his presidency, with large-scale deportations and high-profile crackdowns. “Now, the agency is deploying more security to its offices – while leaders warn that the US is headed in a dangerous direction if the political violence continues,” she added. Advertisement Where did the shooting happen? The shooting took place at ICE’s field office in Dallas, which covers Texas and Oklahoma. The ICE facility sits along Interstate 35 East, just southwest of Dallas Love Field, a major airport for the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and only a few blocks from hotels that serve travellers. This wasn’t the first time the facility had been targeted. Last month, 36-year-old US citizen Bratton Dean Wilkinson was arrested after arriving at the facility and claiming he had a bomb in his backpack, showing officers what he said was a detonator on his wrist. INTERACTIVE- Shooting at ICE facility - SEP 24, 2025-1758725500 What do we know about the suspect? Lyons, the acting director of ICE, confirmed to Fox News that officials had identified the suspected attacker as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn. Jahn had lived in a Dallas suburb, according to public records. According to authorities, the gunman killed himself after opening fire, and his body was found near the ICE facility he had fired at. Court records show Jahn was arrested in 2015 for delivering marijuana to buyers. In 2016, he admitted to delivering between a quarter-ounce (7g) and five pounds (2.3kg). He was given five years of probation and a $500 fine. Under Texas law, the charge is considered a “state jail felony”, which is the lowest level of felony offence in the state. Joshua Jahn Joshua Jahn appears in a police booking mugshot taken on April 6, 2016, by the Collin County Sheriff’s Office [Handout/Collin County Sheriff’s Office via Reuters] As Jahn’s name began circulating online, his older brother, Noah Jahn, spoke with a Reuters reporter. Noah, 30, who lives in McKinney, Texas – about 48km (30 miles) north of Dallas – said he was unaware of his brother having any negative feelings towards ICE. “I didn’t know he had any political intent at all,” Noah said. “He’s a young kid, a thousand miles from home, didn’t really seem to have any direction, living out of his car at such a young age,” Ryan Sanderson, who met him in 2017, told The Associated Press news agency. “I don’t remember him being that abnormal. He didn’t seem to fight with anyone or cause trouble. He kept his head down and stayed working.” What do we know about the victims? Authorities have not released the identities of the victims. They said the three detainees who were shot were in the country without proper documentation and had been taken into custody and were awaiting transfer to a longer-term facility. According to Mexico’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, one of the injured detainees is a Mexican national. The ministry said the individual is hospitalised with serious injuries, and that the Mexican consulate has contacted the family to provide support and legal assistance. What have been the reactions? In a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, President Trump said he had been briefed on the Dallas shooting. He described the attacker as “deranged”, referred to the “Anti-ICE” message allegedly found on the shell casings and called that “despicable”. Trump did not mention the victims, but instead urged, “CALLING ON ALL DEMOCRATS TO STOP THIS RHETORIC AGAINST ICE AND AMERICA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT, RIGHT NOW!” Vice President JD Vance, without offering evidence, said the attack was politically motivated. At an event in North Carolina, he said that California Governor Gavin Newsom and others didn’t need to support the Trump administration’s immigration policies, but “if your political rhetoric incites violence against law enforcement, you can go straight to hell”. Newsom quickly responded. “No thanks, JD. I will not be going ‘straight to hell’ today,” Newsom said. “Though when I watch you speak I certainly feel like I’m already there.” Texas Senator Ted Cruz appealed for calm. “This has very real consequences,” Cruz said. “Look, in America, we disagree. That’s fine. That’s the democratic process, but your political opponents are not Nazis. We need to learn to work together without demonising each other, without attacking each other,” he added. Democratic leaders denounced the shooting. “No one in America should be violently targeted, including our men and women in law enforcement who protect and serve our neighbourhoods, and the immigrants who are too often the victims of dehumanising rhetoric,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark, and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said in a joint statement. Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said, “These horrendous killings serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences. “I ask you to pray for our law enforcement officers, particularly those charged with enforcing immigration laws and keeping the border secure. I also ask you to pray for any victims of this senseless, politically motivated shooting,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said. “These must stop.”

Trump's antifa order thrills allies — and tests the law

There is no legal mechanism for President Donald Trump to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization — and his executive order attempting to do so has only spurred questions about how the Trump administration will implement its left-wing crackdown. But for Trump aides and allies who have long awaited this step, that’s not the point. 00:17 Top Stories from POLITICO People close to the president view the executive order Trump issued Monday as a long-overdue action, one that serves as both a messaging and prioritization tool for the White House and sends a signal that Trump will devote resources to investigating the broad anti-fascist ideology. And as national security and legal experts note there is no legal process for such a designation, it’s another example of the White House not shying away from a potential court challenge as the president’s aides work to expand his Article II powers. “This is going to be challenged legally, too. I think the one thing that this administration is pretty clear about is that Trump is breaking norms … but he’s doing that for a purpose because the country is in an emergency,” said Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist and War Room podcast host, adding that the president’s team is already gearing up to implement his executive order. “I think President Trump is saying, ‘this ain’t my first term, and I’m not going to be talked out of it by [former Attorney General] Bill Barr.’” The assassination of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of the youth-focused conservative organization Turning Point USA, has reignited the president’s yearslong focus on antifa, which he blames for funding and fueling political violence. Trump was close to issuing a similar action in 2020, Bannon said, and his willingness to forge ahead now is another example of the president going a step beyond the policy ambitions of his first term. In 2020, the president and his aides blamed antifa for fueling violence at protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, the unarmed man killed by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Trump at the time called for antifa to be designated a terrorist organization, but his administration never took that step mostly due to Justice Department resistance, and those charged with serious federal crimes were unable to be linked to the loose collective of anti-fascist activists. “There’s not really a formal designation in law, but as the executive, he can do that, and he can direct a skewing of DOJ resources to attack the problem. That’s how I perceive what he’s doing,” said Ken Cuccinelli, who served as Trump’s deputy secretary of Homeland Security during the first administration. “I wish we had done it in 2020 when these people were rather clearly going from city to city. And I asked for it and didn’t get it.” Antifa, a decentralized and sometimes violent protest culture of left-wing activists, takes its name from anti-fascist movements that sprung up post-World War I in opposition to far-right political parties, including the Nazi Party. The modern antifa, which the White House describes as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise,” has been marked by some incidents of violence and law-breaking but lacks leadership and structure. During the first Trump administration, FBI Director Christopher Wray described it as an ideology, not an organization. Because of this, the administration will face significant difficulties as Trump threatens “investigatory and prosecutorial action” against those who financially support antifa. The federal government does have a list of foreign terrorist organizations, and the Justice Department has the power to prosecute those who give material support to those organizations. But no such mechanism exists for designating domestic terrorist organizations, in part due to sweeping First Amendment protections for organizations operating on U.S. soil, said Faiza Patel, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The law does not have a parallel statute for designating anybody as a domestic terrorism organization — that simply doesn’t exist in the law,” Patel said. “But this framework will be used to further elevate law enforcement attention to anybody or anything that can potentially be described as being linked to antifa in any way.” Building successful cases connecting people and organizations to antifa will be difficult, and any actions the administration takes to charge people under a domestic terrorism framework will likely face a “robust legal challenge,” she added. A White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the executive order, wouldn’t say how the president would designate antifa a domestic terrorist organization. But the official said the action means Trump is “directing different parts of the government” to stop “illegal activities and terrorism.” Cuccinelli said it’s a message to all 93 U.S. Attorney’s offices to ensure they put resources toward addressing the financial and organizational connections between violent actors and antifa. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said antifa uses “violence and terrorism to try and accomplish their sick goals.” She said Democrats have tried to downplay the movement’s “reign of territory and looked the other way while left-wing violence plagued communities. No more.” Questions remain about how the president will execute his vow to target antifa and left-wing groups. The text the White House released this week is vague, and it doesn’t spell out how agencies across the administration will “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations.” But the president on Wednesday — after an attack at an ICE facility in Texas — said he will sign another executive order later this week to “dismantle these Domestic Terrorism Networks.” A gunman killed at least one detainee and injured several others at a Dallas ICE facility on Wednesday, and FBI Director Kash Patel posted photos of the ammunition on X, including one with the words “anti-ICE” written on it. The motive of the gunman, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was still unknown Wednesday afternoon. Republicans pointed to it as another example of left-wing violence. Watch: The Conversation Play Video34:16 Trump AI Advisor Wants 'American AI,' not 'Woke AI' | The Conversation “The continuing violence from Radical Left Terrorists, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, must be stopped. ICE Officers, and other Brave Members of Law Enforcement, are under grave threat. We have already declared ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization, and I will be signing an Executive Order this week to dismantle these Domestic Terrorism Networks,“ the president said in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. There are broader fears that the Trump administration is building to an expansive crackdown on left-wing opposition to the president. The White House has vowed to target liberal organizations such as the Ford Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. The president has decried what he says is a liberal media ecosystem, sued news organizations and threatened broadcast station licenses. Administration officials said they’re working to revoke visas from non-citizens who celebrated Kirk’s death. And they’ve warned against hate speech. Even if Trump’s executive order has little to show in criminal prosecutions, Patel said, the effect of the executive order will still be felt. “If the goal is chilling speech and activism,” she said, “the fact that you know the federal government is doing this is in and of itself hugely consequential.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Politics Trump administration can't require states to cooperate with immigration agents to get FEMA grants, judge rules

A federal judge ruled Wednesday it is unconstitutional for the Trump administration to require states to cooperate with immigration enforcement in order to get some Federal Emergency Management Agency grants — a legal setback in the administration's push to revoke funding to "sanctuary" cities and states. U.S. District Judge William Smith of Rhode Island ruled in favor of 20 mostly Democratic states that had sued FEMA, accusing the administration of "holding critical emergency preparedness and response funding hostage" unless they assist immigration agents. The decision is likely to be appealed. The states that sued — which include California, New York and Illinois — took issue with a Department of Homeland Security document issued earlier this year that says recipients of DHS grants must "honor requests for cooperation" with immigration authorities, including requests to detain migrants or share information. Some of the plaintiffs are "sanctuary" states that have laws restricting cooperation between police and immigration agents. The states argued this move violates federal law and the Constitution, and could deprive them of billions per year in key disaster grants from FEMA, which is a sub-agency of DHS. Continue watching Inside the debate over animal testing in medical research after the ad The video player is currently playing an ad. The Trump administration has argued its policy doesn't violate the law. Also, months after the lawsuit was filed, the government told the court it had decided most of the FEMA disaster grants that the states were concerned about losing will not be tied to immigration cooperation after all. The administration called the lawsuit moot on those grounds. The states called the Trump administration's decision not to link disaster grants to immigration enforcement "halfhearted and incomplete," arguing it's unclear if the decision was communicated to agency staff or if it will apply to years beyond 2025. In a 45-page ruling Wednesday, Smith sided with the states and granted summary judgment, calling the policy "both arbitrary and capricious and unconstitutional." "Plaintiff States stand to suffer irreparable harm; the effect of the loss of emergency and disaster funds cannot be recovered later, and the downstream effect on disaster response and public safety are real and not compensable," Smith wrote. New York Attorney General Letitia James hailed the ruling in a statement, writing: "The federal government cannot prioritize its cruel immigration agenda over Americans' safety. Today, the court affirmed that it is blatantly unconstitutional for DHS to hold life-saving disaster relief funds hostage to advance its anti-immigration efforts." DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin asserted in a statement that cities and states that "break the law and prevent us from arresting criminal illegal aliens should not receive federal funding." "The Trump Administration is committed to restoring the rule of law. No lawsuit, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that," she wrote. The ruling follows a monthslong gambit by President Trump to punish "sanctuary" cities and states that limit cooperation between the police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Trump administration argues that those jurisdictions make it harder for ICE to apprehend undocumented immigrants, including accused criminals and people who are in state or local custody. But "sanctuary" cities and states typically argue that requiring them to cooperate with ICE would undermine trust in local police and make some immigrants wary of reporting crimes. Within hours of returning to office in January, Mr. Trump signed an executive order telling federal agencies to ensure that "sanctuary" jurisdictions "do not receive access to Federal funds." Since then, several agencies have moved to restrict grants to "sanctuary" cities and states, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those moves have drawn lawsuits from Democratic cities and states. Last month, a San Francisco-based judge blocked the Trump administration from cutting off funding to almost three dozen cities and counties, including Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

1 detainee killed and 2 others critically injured in Dallas ICE facility, Homeland Security says

DALLAS (AP) — A shooter with a rifle opened fire from a nearby roof onto a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement location in Dallas on Wednesday, killing one detainee and wounding two others in a transport van before taking his own life, authorities said. The suspect was identified by a law enforcement official as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn. The official could not publicly disclose details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The exact motivation for the attack was not immediately known. FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on social media showing a bullet found at the scene with “ANTI-ICE” written on it. Advertisement The attack is the latest public, targeted killing in the U.S., coming two weeks after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed by a rifle-wielding shooter and as heightened immigration enforcement has prompted backlash against ICE agents and fear in immigrant communities. The American Immigration Lawyers Association called the shootings “a stark reminder that behind every immigration case number is a human being deserving of dignity, safety, and respect.” “Whether they are individuals navigating the immigration process, public servants carrying out their duties, or professionals working within the system, all deserve to be free from violence and fear,” the group said in a statement. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that shots were fired “indiscriminately at the ICE building, including at a van in the sallyport,” a secure and gated entryway. Advertisement The wounded detainees were in critical condition at a hospital, said DHS, which previously said two detainees were killed and one was wounded before issuing a correction. No ICE agents were injured. By the evening, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered more security at ICE facilities across the U.S., according to a post by DHS on the social platform X. More in U.S. ‘I’m so sorry’: Suspected ICE sniper Joshua Jahn’s family breaks silence over Dallas shooting The Independent 3.6K JD Vance Blasts Jon Favreau Over Take on ICE Facility Shooting: ‘What, Precisely, Did I Get Wrong, Dips–t?’ The Wrap 2.5K Decision Made on Body of Celeste Rivas, 15-Year-Old Found in D4vd's Tesla Men's Journal 85 You Can See People Wearing This 250th Anniversary Hat Everywhere Glosrity Ad ‘Targeted violence’ At a midday news conference, authorities gave few details about the shooting and did not release the names of the victims or the gunman. The FBI said it was investigating the shooting as “an act of targeted violence.” Officers responded to a call to assist an officer on North Stemmons Freeway around 6:40 a.m. and determined that someone had opened fire at a government building from an adjacent building, Dallas police spokesperson Officer Jonathan E. Maner said via email. Advertisement The gunman used a bolt-action rifle, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Edwin Cardona, an immigrant from Venezuela, said he was entering the ICE building with his son for an appointment around 6:20 a.m. when he heard gunshots. An agent took people who were inside to a more secure area and said there was an active shooter. “I was afraid for my family, because my family was outside. I felt terrible, because I thought something could happen to them. Thank God, no,” Cardona said. Cardona said they were later reunited. Advertisement The ICE facility is along Interstate 35 East, just southwest of Dallas Love Field, a large airport serving the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and blocks from hotels. Who was Joshua Jahn? Hours after the shooting, FBI agents gathered at a suburban Dallas home that public records link to Jahn. It sits on a tree-lined cul-de-sac in a neighborhood dotted with one- and two-story brick homes. The street was blocked by a Fairview police vehicle, but officials wearing FBI jackets could be seen in the front yard. A spokesperson for Collin College in nearby McKinney, said via email that a Joshua Jahn studied there “at various times” between 2013 and 2018. Advertisement Martyna Kowalczyk, CEO of Texas-based Solartime USA, said in a statement that Jahn worked for her company for less than a few months “many years ago.” In late 2017, Jahn drove cross-country to work a minimum-wage job harvesting marijuana for several months, according to Ryan Sanderson, owner of a legal cannabis farm in Washington state. “He’s a young kid, a thousand miles from home, didn’t really seem to have any direction, living out of his car at such a young age,” Sanderson told AP. “I don’t remember him being that abnormal. He didn’t seem to fight with anyone or cause trouble. He kept his head down and stayed working.” Sanderson said he tried to keep Jahn longer because he “felt bad for him.” Advertisement Calls for an end to political violence Shortly after the shooting and before officials said at least one victim was a detainee, Vice President JD Vance posted on X that “the obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop.” Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who represents Texas, continued in that direction, calling for an end to political violence. “To every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing CBP: Stop,” Cruz told reporters, referencing Customs and Border Protection. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called the shooting not just an attack on law enforcement and the victims but “an attack on our community and on our nation’s heritage of civil and democratic discourse.” Advertisement The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, an advocacy group, said the shootings are “a heartbreaking reminder of the violence and fear that too often touch the lives of migrants and the communities where they live.” “Violence must never be allowed to define how we respond to migration,” said Anna Gallagher, the group’s executive director. The Rev. Ashley Anne Sipe, who prays outside the Dallas ICE facility every Monday said: “Violence doesn’t heal anything." Sipe and other local faith leaders who have decried deportations hold weekly vigils and serve as “moral witnesses.” They pray and observe for about three hours, watching as immigrants enter the building to meet with advisers and report for check-ins. Advertisement Sipe said she has noticed in recent months that people who enter are shuttled away on buses. “They’re taking them away, and we don’t know where they’re taking them,” Sipe said. Noem: ICE agents targeted Noem noted a recent uptick in targeting of ICE agents. On July 4 attackers in black, military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, federal prosecutors said. One police officer was injured. At least 11 people have been charged in connection with the attack. Days later a man with an assault rifle fired dozens of rounds at federal agents leaving a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen. The man, identified as Ryan Louis Mosqueda, injured a police officer who responded to the scene before authorities shot and killed him. Advertisement And in suburban Chicago, federal authorities erected a fence around an immigration processing center after tensions flared with protesters. President Donald Trump's administration has stepped up immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, resulting in hundreds of arrests. Ahead of the latest immigration operation, federal officials boarded up windows at the center. Sixteen people have been arrested outside, according to authorities who called the activists “rioters.” Attacks, escapes concern at some ICE offices Dozens of field offices across the country house administrative employees and are used for people summoned for check-in appointments and to process people arrested before they are transferred to long-term detention centers. They are not designed to hold people in custody. Security varies by location, with some located in federal buildings and others mixed with private businesses, said John Torres, a former acting director of the agency and former head of what is now called its enforcement and removals division. Some, like Dallas, have exposed loading areas for buses, which pose risks for escape and outside attack, Torres said. Other vulnerabilities are nearby vantage points for snipers and long lines forming outside without protection. “I would assure you that ICE, after today, is going to be a taking a hard look at physical security assessments for all of their facilities,” said Torres, currently head of security and technology consulting at Guidepost Solutions. ___ This story has been updated to correct that Dallas police Officer Maner’s first name is Jonathan, not Jonathen. ___ Brook reported from New Orleans. Associated Press journalists Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland, Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Jeff Martin and R.J. Rico in Atlanta, Sophia Tareen in Chicago, Mike Balsamo in New York, Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington and Julio Cortez in Dallas contributed. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

White House defends border czar in wake of closed DOJ probe: Homan did ‘nothing wrong’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that President Donald Trump did not ask the Justice Department to shut down the investigation of border czar Tom Homan for potential bribery. Federal law enforcement last year investigated Homan, who allegedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as business executives seeking government contracts, according to an MSNBC report on Saturday. The outlet reported that Homan indicated he could help the undercover agents secure government contracts. The Justice Department waited to see if Homan planned to fulfil this claim, but the case stalled and was closed this summer. 00:15 Top Stories from POLITICO The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard MSNBC reported that the alleged meeting took place in September 2024 and Homan was caught on camera accepting the bills. POLITICO has not independently confirmed any details of the investigation, beyond several senior Trump administration officials acknowledging a probe took place and has since been closed. Leavitt launched an ardent defense of Homan at the podium during Monday’s press briefing and said the border czar never took the $50,000. She decried the investigation as another “example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice” against one of the president’s “strongest and most vocal supporters” during the 2024 presidential campaign. “Mr. Homan did absolutely nothing wrong, and even the president’s Department of Justice, even Kash Patel’s FBI looked into this just to make sure — they had a number of different prosecutors and FBI agents who looked into this — they found zero evidence of illegal activity or criminal wrongdoing,” Leavitt said. “The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100 percent because he did absolutely nothing wrong.” Homan is a close ally of the president, and served for a stint as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during his first term. The border czar has been among the most visible defenders of the president’s second term immigration agenda, and has been a key player in executing the administration’s deportation policy. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump visa policy requires universities to pay huge fee to hire foreign scholars

U.S. President Donald Trump hopes to boost opportunities for domestic scientists by making it prohibitively expensive for universities to hire international faculty and staff. On 19 September, the president issued a proclamation requiring employers to pay the government $100,000 for every foreign scholar they want to hire. The cost would be added to fees of a few thousand dollars now assessed to sponsor someone from outside the United States under the H-1B visa program. The H-1B program is aimed at enabling U.S. companies to hire foreign-born scientists and engineers for a limited amount of time when they cannot find a suitable U.S.-based candidate. But critics say tech companies use the program to exploit foreign workers by paying them substandard wages and then replacing them with another foreign worker when their visas expire. “The high numbers of relatively low-wage workers in the H-1B program undercut the integrity of the program and are detrimental to American workers’ wages and labor opportunities,” according to Trump’s proclamation. SIGN UP FOR THE AWARD-WINNING SCIENCEADVISER NEWSLETTER The latest news, commentary, and research, free to your inbox daily Many private firms counter that H-1Bs enable them to hire the talent necessary to keep pace in a highly competitive global market. And U.S. universities have long used H-1Bs as a way to employ foreign-born postdocs and faculty. The government holds a lottery to award up to 85,000 H-1B visas annually. However, universities and other nonprofit organizations are exempt from that cap, and elite research universities may employ as many as 200 or more faculty members and other science, technology, engineering, and math workers under the program. But the new fee, which applies to any application submitted after 21 September, could end that practice. “Universities look to hire the best researchers and the best teachers from anywhere in the world,” says Britta Glennon, who studies global innovation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “But this fee could force them to hire only the best U.S. candidate.” The fee, Glennon adds, could also drive down the flow of foreign students to U.S. graduate programs by dimming their prospects of being hired by a U.S. university or company after completing their Ph.D. (Most H-1Bs are issued to someone already in the United States.) Advertisement The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has warned the new fee will hurt U.S. global competitiveness. “By requiring H-1B workers to pay an exorbitant $100,000 fee to participate, the administration has effectively shut out teachers, non-profits, researchers, rural doctors, clergy, and other professionals who simply can’t afford Trump’s elitist revisioning of the H-1B program,” AILA President Jeff Joseph said in a statement. The group also says the new fee is unconstitutional, because only Congress has the power to set visa fees. “The President has overstepped his executive authority on a proposal that will undermine innovation and prevent businesses both large and small from accessing the talent they need,” Joseph said. Ronil Hira, a political scientist at Howard University, says Trump’s directive is aimed not at universities but at the bottom line of companies he says are exploiting the system. “They will have to decide if they are making enough money off that worker to justify paying the government an additional $100,000,” says Hira, who believes many of the program’s ills can be solved by raising the minimum wage for these workers. “So, Trump is essentially calling their bluff.” Universities will also have to assess whether a foreign scientist adds sufficient value to warrant the additional cost, Hira adds. “If that person brings in millions of dollars in federal grants or boosts the institution’s reputation, then maybe the answer is yes.” However, Glennon doubts that many universities will spring for the additional fee. “I don’t know where that money would come from,” she says. Trump’s initial announcement didn’t make clear whether the fee might also apply to current visa holders. As a result, immigration lawyers and higher education officials over the weekend urged foreign scholars to return immediately if overseas and not to travel outside the country. That’s still good advice, Joseph says. “The initial crisis has passed, but we are still telling people to stay put for now,” he said yesterday during a webinar on the new fee. Joseph called the order “an invitation for litigation,” but said potential litigants will likely want to know more before making a decision about going to court. The order allows the government to waive the new fee for employees working “in the national interest” and who pose no threat to national security. Glennon expects universities to argue their scholars warrant such an exemption, which must be granted by the head of the Department of Homeland Security. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Ice targeted me for organizing, says farm worker who left US for Mexico

Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino spends much of his days outdoors, harvesting bananas and hiking vast, bramble-laden trails. But for more than a quarter of 2025, he barely saw the sun. After being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in March, the farm-worker activist was placed in a detention center in Washington state, where he remained until he agreed to voluntarily leave the US. “I probably would say five times, in the three months and a half I was in there, they offered me to go outside,” he explained on a Zoom call from his family farm in Guerrero, Mexico, where he has been for more than a month. Juarez Zeferino is among the thousands of people who have agreed to leave the country after arriving without documentation – a group that is reportedly growing. His arrest was officially based on a deportation order about which he says he never received a notification. Between January and July, Ice data shows that more than 11,000 non-citizens reported that they had self-deported, but many others have likely done so without registering their departure with the government. The data does not make clear how many people, like Juarez Zeferino, chose to exit the US after being arrested. Colleagues, friends and supporters of the 25-year-old organizer believe he was targeted by the Trump administration for his success as a farm-worker organizer. Juarez Zeferino said he agrees with that assessment. “I would say definitely,” he said when asked whether he believes he was targeted. “I would say yes.” Ice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reached for comment in July, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that allegations of Ice politically targeting Juarez Zeferino were “categorically FALSE”, calling him “an illegal alien from Mexico with a final order of removal from a judge”. The weeks-long stretches indoors were just one major problem Juarez Zeferino faced during his time in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, a massive facility that holds more than 1,500 people who are being threatened with deportation. Another was the food: meals would often arrive well after midnight, and at times featured “dangerously undercooked” meat. On several occasions, he said, detainees were served nearly raw, bloody chicken; those who ate it often suffered upset stomachs and painful cramps. a man taking a selfie View image in fullscreen Alfredo Juarez Zeferino. Photograph: Courtesy of Alfredo Juarez Zeferino “I asked the guards why a lot of the foods were undercooked, or what’s happening in the kitchen,” he said. “The general answer they would give is that they were understaffed.” The understaffing caused other issues, too. When Juarez Zeferino and others would attempt to receive medical care, for instance, they were often turned away after long, arduous waits. “When I got sick, I just tried to sleep,” he said. “I stopped even bothering signing up to see a doctor, because I really had no hope of getting in front of one.” The facility did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Juarez Zeferino’s most harrowing experience in the immigration jail came within his first week in the facility. At about 10pm, he saw a guard walking around with a list of detainees set to be placed on a deportation flight that night. He saw his name highlighted, and in a panic called his lawyer, who was able to have his name removed. “But the only way we were able to stop it was because I saw my name,” he said. “If I didn’t see my name, they would just have pushed me out, put me on a flight.” Despite these uncomfortable and sometimes torturous conditions, Juarez Zeferino struggled deeply with his decision to self-deport. “It was very hard, especially with all the work that I have done, the relationships I’ve built, to decide to leave,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to reconnect, or how I could continue the job of organizing.” During his 18 years in Washington, Juarez Zeferino fought for labor protections for undocumented agricultural workers like himself, with a remarkable success rate. As a teenager, Juarez Zeferino helped win a farm-worker union and organized an international boycott against berry giant Driscoll. He also played an integral part in winning statewide heat protections for outdoor laborers, a cap on rent and guaranteed overtime pay. Now, from Mexico, he is continuing to organize with Familias Unidas por la Justicia, the union he helped found, and Community to Community, the food justice group with which he organizes. Every week, he attends remote meetings. In recent months, he has been pushing Washington and other states to pass bills authorizing officials to regularly inspect Ice detention centers unannounced. He is also still organizing for farm-worker justice; one top priority is ending reliance on the H-2A contract labor program, which allows farm owners to recruit foreign agricultural laborers to work on their farms temporarily and then return to their home countries. Nearly a third of all Washington state farm laborers have now been replaced by guest workers via the program, which Juarez Zeferino has for years staunchly criticized, arguing it crowds out domestic workers in favor of foreign laborers who can be far easier to exploit and mistreat. Juarez Zeferino believes the industry’s desire to “replace all local workers with imported guest workers” has fueled the Trump administration’s war on farm-worker activists. Since his arrest, border patrol agents in May arrested farm-worker organizers on a Vermont dairy farm, and that same month Ice arrested workers on a New York farm who were involved in a germinal labor case. In August, Ice raided the same New York farm again. “They really want to push out all those folks that know their rights,” he said. Juarez Zeferino is now pursuing a legal path to come back to the US, where he had lived since he was eight. In the meantime, he is enjoying his time back in Santa Cruz Yucucani, the village where he is living for the first time since he was a child. He is staying with his parents and siblings, who left the US just days before he was arrested, and his partner. Though he is still working on a farm, it belongs to his family, so he can take breaks whenever he likes. The best part of being back in Mexico, he says, is picking plants to eat – not from fields, but from mountaintops where they grow wild. “Just gathering the food is a whole experience,” he said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

MoneyWatch Here's what immigration attorneys say about Trump's $100,000 H-1B fee

The Trump administration's new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications is sowing confusion among some immigrant workers and their employers, including whether it's safe for current holders of the visa to travel outside the U.S. The new fee, which President Trump announced in a proclamation on Friday, represents a major change to a 35-year-old program that has enabled millions of immigrants to work legally in the U.S. The visa has become a mainstay in the technology industry, including among bellwethers such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft, and is also widely used in the financial sector. Biggest corporate users of H-1B visas The number of H-1B petitions approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), broken down by employer. Data covers Oct. 1, 2024 – the start of the 2025 federal fiscal year – through June 30, 2025. AMAZON.COM 10,044 TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES 5,505 MICROSOFT 5,189 META 5,123 APPLE 4,202 GOOGLE 4,181 COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS 2,493 JPMORGAN CHASE AND CO 2,440 WAL-MART 2,390 DELOITTE 2,353 AMAZON WEB SERVICES 2,347 ORACLE 2,092 INFOSYS 2,004 CAPGEMINI AMERICA 1,844 LTIMINDTREE 1,807 HCL AMERICA 1,728 INTEL 1,698 ERNST AND YOUNG 1,695 IBM 1,598 CISCO SYSTEMS 1,570 Chart: Taylor Johnston / CBS NewsSource: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Over the weekend, the White House sought to clarify the new policy, stating that the fee doesn't apply to current H-1B holders and that it is a one-time cost required only when initially applying for the visa. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the addition of a $100,000 charge for H-1B visas on top of the existing fees reflects President Trump's promise "to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages." She added, "The text of the proclamation is very clear, and it is unfortunate that uninformed reporters and corporate lawyers attempt to sow chaos and confusion. Americans have another reason to celebrate unprecedented action by President Trump to protect Americans from cheap foreign labor." The video player is currently playing an ad. After the White House outlined the new policy on Friday, some tech companies including Google and Microsoft this weekend instructed H-1B employees who were traveling outside the U.S. to return immediately, expressing concern they might not be allowed to re-enter without the $100,000 payment, according to workers and immigration lawyers. Despite the White House's clarification that the new fee applies only to new visa applications, not existing H-1B holders, there remains "a great degree of uncertainty on the ground," Parul Koul, president of the union that represents employees at Google owner Alphabet, said during a press conference on Monday to address the new policy. On Tuesday, the Trump administration published a proposal to change how H-1B visas are allotted, switching from a randomized lottery to a system that would favor immigrants with higher skills and incomes. CBS News spoke with attorneys and other sources about the new policy — here's what to know. Who pays the $100,000 fee? Under current H-1B rules, employers pay the application fees on behalf of workers. Assuming that approach continues, that could deter many employers from picking up the additional $100,000 fees — roughly 10 times what they previously paid for an applicant, Emily Neumann, an immigration attorney and managing partner at Houston-based Reddy Neumann Brown, told CBS MoneyWatch. "Very few employers would be willing to shell out that kind of money," she said. Such an outcome would appear to align with the White House's goals of spurring employers to hire within the U.S. rather than recruiting foreign workers. "It is therefore necessary to impose higher costs on companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to address the abuse of that program while still permitting companies to hire the best of the best temporary foreign workers," Mr. Trump said in his order. When does the fee go into effect? The new fee must be paid in submitting any new H-1B visa application and went into effect at 12:01 am EST on Sept. 21, according to a White House statement. Each year, the federal government approves 85,000 H-1B visas for highly skilled non-U.S. workers, who typically require at least a bachelor's degree and a skill in a highly specialized field, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. An estimated 700,000 people in the U.S. hold a H-1B visa, according to Capital Economics. The USCIS says it has already reached its applicant cap for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That means those applications would be excluded from having to pay the fee, but new applicants filing during the next fiscal year would be subject to it, Neumann explained. What are the main issues for current H-1B holders? According to the White House, the proclamation "does not prevent any holder of a current H-1B visa from traveling in and out of the United States." H-1B visas are valid for three years, but can be extended for an additional three years. A White House official said the one-time $100,000 fee is only charged when applying for a visa for the first time — the payment is not required for current visa holders or those renewing the document, and those fees aren't changing. Yet the new rules leave some gray areas for current H-1B holders, Neumann said. For instance, the new fee is targeted at new visa applicants residing outside the U.S. That raises questions about whether current H-1B visa holders who are applying for changes, such as a visa renewal or a change of employer, might be caught up in the new requirement if they leave the U.S., Neumann and other immigration attorneys said. "Where the question comes in is, what if after September 21 they file that extension and then they need to travel — are they going to be expected to pay that in order to get back into the U.S.?" she said. "That's kind of an open question right now." Although the White House said the fee doesn't apply to current H-1B holders and won't impact their travel, Neumann said she believes more guidance is needed because the White House's Sept. 21 FAQ notes the fee applies to "any other H-1B petitions submitted after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025." "This makes it sound like it could apply to an employee who travels with any petition filed after September 21, 2025. Although it seems clear that it does not apply to individuals currently in the United States, it is not clear how it impacts those who later travel and have a petition filed after the relevant date," she said. For now, Neumann said she is advising her corporate clients to direct their H-1B employees not to leave the U.S.. That was echoed by Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and an immigration attorney. "Until we have more clarification, which hopefully we'll have soon, we're telling people to just sit tight and not travel," Joseph said. Asked about the issue of H-1B holders who are applying for a change and who travel outside the U.S., the White House said the one-time $100,000 fee doesn't apply to renewals or current visa holders. How does the new fee impact the H-1B program? The $100,000 fee is likely to have a "chilling effect" on skilled foreign workers moving to the U.S., Joseph of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said. Although the tech industry has long been the biggest beneficiary of the H-1B program, the visa is designed for highly skilled workers across many industries, he added. Employers who rely on the visa include those in health care, which often recruit medical professionals outside the U.S. in areas where they have shortages, he said. More than 7 in 10 recipients of H-1B visas are from India, followed by China, at more than 1 in 10 recipients. The remainder of H-1B visa holders come from a range of countries, including Canada, South Korea, the Philippines, Mexico and Taiwan, according to a 2022 USCIS report. What about the national security exemption? A provision in Mr. Trump's proclamation exempts some workers, companies and even entire industries from the new $100,000 fee if they are deemed to support the "national interest" and are adjudged not to pose a threat to the security or welfare of the U.S. For now, however, it's unclear how to receive such an exemption, including which federal agency will be charged with approving them, Neumann said. "There's no guidance out there yet," she said. "What are the national interest exemptions going to be? How would a company apply for that, if they can get the entire company to get the exemption? How would the individual apply?" The White House didn't respond to questions about how the national security exemption would be applied or which agency will be handling the issue. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Hiring of military lawyers as immigration judges alarms law experts

The Trump administration has started recruiting hundreds of military lawyers to sit as immigration judges, presiding over what are often life-and-death federal decisions for immigrants in the US, as experts warn the White House strategy is high-risk and arguably unlawful. The judgeships are temporary, but renewable, and the government’s goal is to fill an acute need for more immigration judges amid Donald Trump’s mass deportation mission – which is now happening even as experienced immigration judges seemingly deemed to have fallen foul of the president’s agenda are being purged from the courts. Active-duty armed forces officers and reservists, part of the military’s justice arm known as the Judge Advocate General’s (Jag) corps, which has given rise to the lawyers there being nickname ‘Jags’, are getting messages asking them to volunteer for the high-stakes immigration roles. But experts warn that military lawyers do not have the specialized knowledge to perform the duties of an immigration judge and may only have gotten an hour or two of immigration law training – if that - during JAG school, while, further, their appointments would likely break the law. “The military’s mission is to kill people and break things — and Jags are trained to support that mission within the boundaries of military law. That’s not the same as immigration law. So why would we be using those attorneys, of all the lawyers out there, to decide the fate of families seeking refuge?” said Shawn VanDiver, a navy veteran and immigration advocate. “It’s just another way the Trump administration is trying to sow fear and keep people from coming here.” According to the White House and the Pentagon, military attorneys could double the ranks of immigration judges and tackle the overwhelming backlog of 3.75m cases. But their use for civilian immigration enforcement would appear to violate Congress’s laws, namely the Posse Comitatus Act, and the executive branch’s own regulations, experts say. In fact, in a resurfaced Reagan-era memo, even Samuel Alito, now one of the most conservative justices on the US Supreme Court, recognized that “if military lawyers functioning under the usual military chain-of-command were assigned on a part-time basis to perform civilian law enforcement functions along with their regularly assigned military duties”, it would pose “serious questions” legally. He strongly advised against such attorneys making a personal appearance in court. Similarly, Democrats on the Senate armed services committee have said they’re “extremely disturbed” about the scheme and its impact on the Jags’ ability to do their real jobs, if they’re being diverted to the immigration courts. “I don’t quite understand what their end game is here,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer and retired Lt Col in the military police, US army reserve. “Unless they’re just trying to send a message that they’re militarizing justice in America, and somehow that’s gonna scare people.” The Guardian sought comment from the Pentagon, but was referred to the Department of Justice (DoJ), which did not respond to a similar request. The anticipated military assignments come after the DoJ’s executive office for immigration review (EOIR) – which houses the immigration courts – relaxed rules last month so that any lawyer can now serve as a temporary immigration judge. Officials say they no longer believe that restricting appointees to those “with a threshold level of immigration law experience serves EOIR’s interests”. VanDiver is alarmed. “You used to have to prove that you sort of had the chops to be a temporary immigration judge. They’ve taken away all of those requirements now, and it’s literally any attorney that Donald Trump decides, ‘eh, maybe that guy can be deciding somebody’s fate forever’,” VanDiver said. The service members who take on temporary immigration judgeships are expected to receive some training in immigration law, but not nearly enough to responsibly fill the roles, experts said. Immigrants and asylum seekers appear before the immigration courts for many reasons, including to make their case for protection, attain lawful permanent residence or press pause on their proceedings while they pursue other immigration relief. But generally, people are before a judge because they are fighting their removal to their home country – or a third country that will take them. The staggering backlog of cases waiting for adjudication has ballooned since the first Trump administration, amid widespread foreign government repression, natural disasters, failing economies and other factors in other countries across the globe that have forced people to flee across international borders in search of safety and opportunity. The Biden administration regularly declared the US’s immigration system “broken” and, early on, tried measures to relieve pressure on the court system, but those were largely abandoned later in his term. Still, advocates and some Democrats have frequently lamented the US Congress’s failure to pass legislation allowing longterm, law-abiding immigrants to more swiftly legalize their immigration status instead of languishing in the court backlog as their cases go stale. Meanwhile, immigration judges who had already been trained and were actively presiding over dockets have been forced off the bench in recent months, many seemingly because their judicial philosophies did not align with the administration’s priorities. In New York, where two judges were recently terminated, one of them had the highest rate in the city for granting asylum, while the other had been an outspoken critic of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Seven adjudicators have been fired in San Francisco, including the top immigration judge and the three with the highest asylum grant rates there. Similar ousting has played out around the country, including in Chicago and the Boston area — suggesting a focus on gutting the courts in Democratic states and sanctuary cities. More than a hundred immigration judges have left or been fired since Trump returned to the White House. “Even on Friday [September 5], they were firing qualified immigration judges who were sitting on the bench, and now they’re claiming that they need these Jags to come in and take their place, which doesn’t make any sense,” Stock said. “The only thing I can think is somehow they think the Jags are just gonna order everybody deported immediately. You know, they’re not going to pay any attention to the law. And so they’re trying to bring them in in some kind of measure to try to accelerate deportations.” After news broke that up to 600 military attorneys would be appointed as temporary immigration judges for 179-day, renewable assignments, Corey Lewandowski, a long-time Trump affiliate and current senior adviser to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, wrote on social media, “I see more deportations of illegal immigrants in the near future.” As the commander-in-chief, Trump holds outsized sway with the military, and observers believe that Jags making decisions contrary to the administration’s mass deportation campaign could risk damaging their careers – as temporary immigration judges and beyond. But VanDiver has heard from service members that on the topic of the immigration courts and other recent uses of the military for immigration enforcement “they don’t want to do this and they know that it’s wrong”. “They know that it’s not in keeping with our American values. They know that these missions are just the result of fever dreams of an American dictator,” he said. For those and other reasons, Jag corps members who take their oaths of office seriously may not be easily coerced into rubber stamping deportations, even as they’re put in an impossible situation, experts said. “People could be sent back to their home countries and face torture, persecution, death, imprisonment,” said Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “I would be very uncomfortable, with two weeks of training, to go in and make these kinds of decisions.” Nor will the service members necessarily make a dent in the overall backlog of immigration cases, given the likelihood of mass appeals challenging their potential mistakes, jurisdiction and authority. “All of these cases are going to be appealed for legal error and other issues if the judges are not trained,” Joseph said. “So you’re just shifting one backlog to another.” In the end, he said, the question is: “Are we really militarizing the immigration court?” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

How Immigration Crackdowns Are Impacting America’s Farmworkers

American farms hire roughly 2.5 million people annually to pick crops, milk cows, manage nurseries, tend livestock, and otherwise keep farms running, according to an analysis of federal data by UC Davis economics professor Philip Martin. Most farmworkers in the U.S. are immigrants, particularly from Mexico. Some foreign workers come to the U.S. just for seasonal work through the H-2A guest worker visa program. Many more, approximately 1.7 million Mexico-born farmworkers, according to Rural Migration News, are settled in the U.S. and have worked on U.S. farms for decades. Of these settled workers, roughly half have some sort of legal residency status or U.S. citizenship, while the other half, an estimated 850,000, are unauthorized to live in the U.S. Another 1.7 million people work in food processing plants, per the USDA. Many are refugees, and approximately 19% are in the country without authorization, according to the New American Economy research group. In the largest food processing segment, meatpacking, the American Immigration Council estimates that 45% of all workers are immigrants and around 23% are unauthorized. Food workers and farmers are worried about what President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown will mean for their livelihoods, their families, and the nation’s food supply. “The anticipation of not knowing what’s coming down the pike is creating a lot of sleepless nights for agricultural employers,” said Michael Marsh, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE). The administration’s change in enforcement tactics and violations of due process have heightened fear among farm and food workers. The president has suggested that farmers may be able to offer workers a path to leave the U.S. and return legally, but the administration has not presented specifics. After Initial Pause, Raids Hit Farms In his first 100 days, President Trump issued several executive orders directing federal agencies to prevent illegal border crossings, deport unauthorized immigrants, and constrict immigration overall, particularly for refugees and those seeking asylum. As a result, border crossings declined to historically low levels, and immigration arrests are up. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claimed to arrest more unauthorized immigrants in the first 50 days of the Trump administration than in all of the 2024 fiscal year. However, some immigration data experts believe this figure is inflated and that arrests have increased, but not by as much as the administration claims. Nonetheless, Richard Stup, director of Cornell University’s Agricultural Workforce Development program, said farmers and workers have noticed changes in enforcement. “We have much more active enforcement from both ICE and border patrol in rural communities,” Stup said. Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said in January that ICE will target people with criminal records rather than conduct mass workplace raids. This largely held true for about six months, until ICE started conducting more food work site immigration raids. On June 10, ICE arrested 76 workers at the Glenn Valley Foods meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska, roughly half the plant’s staff. That same day, immigration enforcers arrested 11 workers on a dairy farm in New Mexico. Throughout June, ICE also raided several produce farms in southern California, particularly Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles. The impact of those raids extends beyond the arrests. Farmers and plant owners reported that some workers stayed home out of fear following a raid. The Trump administration continues to give mixed signals about its immigration enforcement priorities, at times reiterating that farms and food plants are not targets, only to change its position. The inconsistencies represent internal conflict in the administration between pleasing business owners, such as farmers, and meeting aggressive deportation targets. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller reportedly pressured ICE leadership to increase arrests to meet a goal of deporting 1 million people by the end of the year. The Trump administration has struggled to legally increase deportation rates. The Transactional Records Clearinghouse at Syracuse University and The New York Times found that daily deportation rates during the first six months of the Trump administration were similar or slightly lower than during the Biden administration and started increasing only in May. This largely reflects the fact that many Biden-era deportations happened at the border and border crossings have declined under Trump. National Public Radio reported a 20% increase in immigrants in detention centers from January to June, reflecting the increase in arrests but not deportations. This may explain why the Trump administration has created systems and offered incentives for unauthorized immigrants to voluntarily leave, or “self-deport.” The administration also has been criticized by legal experts for denying immigrants their constitutional right to a fair hearing, and otherwise violating due process to expedite deportations. Graphical presentation of US farm labor statistics showing employment numbers demographics and residency status Source: UC Davis, Rural Migration News, National Agricultural Workers Survey. Restricting Refugees, TPS, and Asylum In addition to new enforcement tactics, the Trump administration has largely eliminated some legal forms of migration, particularly for people fleeing danger and prosecution as refugees, asylum seekers, or migrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). On his second day in office, President Trump suspended all refugee resettlement programs via executive order. The administration has since accepted white South Africans as refugees, but all other refugee resettlement remains on pause despite a court order to resume it. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, the meatpacking industry has the fifth-highest concentration of refugee workers. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also narrowed the TPS program, which permits migrants from 17 countries experiencing war, famine, or other disasters to live in the U.S. without threat of deportation for a limited time. DHS removed Afghanistan and Venezuela from the TPS list and seeks to remove Haiti as well, which would make over 9,000 Afghan, 300,000 Venezuelan, and 200,000 Haitian migrants in the U.S. liable for deportation. In 2020, approximately 15,600 people with TPS worked on farms or in food processing, especially meatpacking. The United Food & Commercial Workers union told Bloomberg that TPS deportations could lead to meat shortages and price increases. The world’s largest meatpacking company, JBS, disagreed, telling Bloomberg that less than 2% of its workers have TPS status. In July, visas were revoked for 200 JBS employees at the company’s plant in Ottumwa, Iowa. Homeland Security also shut down the CPB One app, which allowed migrants who apply for asylum at U.S. points of entry to legally enter and work in the U.S. while their asylum cases are pending. Asylum applicants generally seek year-round work, including in some corners of the food industry, though not so much seasonal farm work. (Farms increasingly rely on the H-2A guest worker visa for seasonal labor.) Immigrant rights organizations say the suspension of the CPB One app, TPS, and refugee resettlement are illegal and have sued to reinstate them. What This Means for Workers and Farmers — and What Happens Next By far, the biggest impact of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is the widespread fear it instills among food and farmworker communities. Most immigrant workers continue to come to work, then seek safety by retreating from public life. Some farms and business owners report workers staying home briefly following news of immigration raids. Most of the 850,000 unauthorized farmworkers in the U.S. arrived 20–30 years ago, have worked on farms for decades, and built lives and families in the U.S. “Obviously, that is terrifying, to have a family at home and possibly get arrested and sent back,” said Stup. “It is affecting peoples’ mental health and well-being. People who used to go out on the weekend, go to Walmart, do shopping about town — none of those things are happening now. They stay home.” Stup and Marsh encouraged farmers and workers to know their rights and create contingency plans in the event of an immigration raid. This includes having up-to-date emergency contacts for all employees, and a plan for dependents who could be left behind. Marsh also recommended that H-2A workers keep their I-94 forms on them at all times. For some farms, especially larger operations in remote areas, there is no Plan B to harvest crops or care for livestock if many of their workers get deported. “The system is not prepared for that; it doesn’t have the capacity to handle things like that,” Stup said. “A remote, large dairy farm that loses a significant part of its workforce — that’s an animal welfare issue waiting to happen.” Agricultural trade organizations have expressed concern about the impact of mass deportations on the food supply, particularly on labor-intensive fruit, vegetable, and dairy farms. In April, President Trump suggested at a Cabinet meeting that unauthorized farmworkers could be granted legal residency if employers vouch for them. “So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they’re great, they’re working hard. We’re going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we’re going to ultimately bring them back. They’ll go out. They’re going to come back as legal workers,” Trump said. The president reiterated that idea in June. “We’re looking at doing something where, in the case of good, reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people that they hire and let them have responsibility, because we can’t put the farms out of business,” Trump said at a press conference. “And at the same time, we don’t want to hurt people that aren’t criminals.” The administration has not provided details or clarifications about what exactly it would “slow down” for farmworkers facing deportation, how farmers would “take responsibility” for workers, why workers would need to leave the country to receive legal residency, or how it would be granted or on what terms. A White House official reportedly told NBC News that President Trump wants to expand the H-2A and H-2B visa programs that allow employers to hire immigrant workers for temporary or seasonal jobs. Employers can only hire migrant workers through these programs after demonstrating they were unable to hire U.S.-born workers at a local prevailing wage. The Biden administration changed the methodology for calculating the rate for H-2A workers, which resulted in a larger pay increase for some of them this year. Some farm organizations, including the NCAE and the Farm Bureau, want the Trump administration to roll back that change and expand the H-2A program to cover year-round workers, especially for dairy and livestock farms. H-2A Jobs Certified and Visas Issued, FY 2005–2021 Source: USDA, Economic Research Service using data from the U.S. Dept. of Labor and the U.S. Dept. of State. The number of farmworkers hired on H-2A visas has quadrupled over the past decade, and the number of meatpacking plants granted H-2B visas increased sixfold from 2015–2023, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. H-2 visa programs could grow even more if immigration enforcement ramps up and more unauthorized food workers are deported. Brownfield Ag News reported that the Department of Labor received nearly 20% more H-2A applications in the first quarter of 2025, which Marsh of the NCAE attributed to farmer anticipation of worker deportations. Farms incur extra costs to hire H-2A workers because they must provide them with housing, meals, and transportation. At the same time, H-2 visa holders have suffered from serious labor abuses, including human trafficking and wage theft, and the programs’ insufficient oversight has been well documented. Critics on the right, such as the authors of the document to reshape government, known as Project 2025, want to limit legal immigration and phase out the H-2 visas. Critics on the left want to strengthen H-2 workers’ labor protections, as well as their enforcement, and provide guest workers a path to citizenship. Neither group seems likely to get its way if the Trump administration follows through on its comments about expanding or changing the visa programs. Takeaways Most of the U.S. farm labor force is foreign born, and a substantial portion is not authorized to live or work in the U.S. The Trump administration’s promise to deport unauthorized immigrants en masse threatens the U.S. food supply, particularly for labor-intensive produce, dairy, and livestock production. At first, the Trump administration promised to limit immigration enforcement on farms and food work sites. It changed its policy in June 2025 and increased food work site raids. The threat of increased immigration enforcement has increased fear among food and farmworker communities. The Trump administration has restricted some forms of immigration, such as refugee resettlement and Temporary Protected Status, which could affect labor in some food sectors, particularly meatpacking. Experts recommend that farms undergo training to learn about their rights and workers’ rights in the event of an immigration raid. The Trump administration has signaled changes to the H-2A and H-2B visa programs as the primary solution to replace the current unauthorized food workforce. This story was produced in partnership with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Immigration judge orders Mahmoud Khalil deported to Syria or Algeria

An immigration judge in Louisiana has ordered pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., deported to Syria or Algeria for failing to disclose certain information on his green card application, according to documents filed in federal court Wednesday by his lawyers. Khalil’s lawyers suggested in a filing that they intend to appeal the deportation order, but expressed concern that the appeal process will likely be swift and unfavorable. The order from the immigration judge, Jamee Comans, came despite a separate order in Khalil’s federal case in New Jersey blocking his deportation while that court considers Khalil’s legal argument that his detention and deportation are unlawful retaliation for his Palestinian advocacy. Khalil’s March 8 arrest and subsequent detention in Louisiana was part of the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on foreign-born pro-Palestinian academics who were studying or working in the U.S. legally. Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student who helped organize campus protests, was arrested at his Manhattan residence and put into deportation proceedings. He has not been charged with a crime. In a letter to the New Jersey federal judge, Michael Farbiarz, Khalil’s lawyers said they have 30 days from Sept. 12, the date of the immigration judge’s ruling, to appeal her decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The lawyers said they expect that process to be “swift” and that an appeal of the BIA decision, which would go to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, is unlikely to be successful, since, they wrote, the appeals court “almost never” grants stays of removal to noncitizens. “As a result,” they wrote, “the only meaningful impediment to Petitioner’s physical removal from the United States would be this Court’s important order prohibiting removal during the pendency of his federal habeas case.” And, they wrote, “nothing would preserve his lawful permanent resident status.” In a statement, Khalil, a Palestinian originally from Syria, accused the Trump administration of using “fascist tactics.” “It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech. Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colors once again,” Khalil said. For more than three months earlier this year, Khalil was held in detention in Louisiana after the Trump administration arrested him, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law that allows the government to deport any noncitizen — even a legal resident — if the secretary of State determines that the person’s continued presence harms U.S. foreign policy interests. In June, Farbiarz, a Biden appointee, blocked the Trump administration from deporting Khalil on foreign policy grounds. Days later, the judge ordered Khalil’s release after determining that he was not a flight risk or danger to the community. That allowed him to return to New York, where he was reunited with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and his newborn son, who was born during his detention. The Trump administration, however, has continued to seek Khalil’s deportation via another rationale it tacked on after his arrest in Manhattan: that when he applied for a green card, he failed to disclose all his past employment and membership in certain organizations. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

More than 10,000 people held in solitary immigration confinement by Ice in a year

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) put more than 10,500 people in solitary confinement between April 2024 and May 2025, and use of the practice has quickly increased under Donald Trump’s administration, according to new research. A report from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the Peeler Immigration Lab, and Harvard Law School experts, published on Wednesday, sheds light on what’s happening inside US immigrant detention facilities and how increasing numbers of vulnerable people are being subjected to solitary confinement for longer periods of time. The United Nations has found that solitary confinement, which is defined within the report as keeping people in small cells without “meaningful human contact” for at least 22 hours a day, amounts to psychological torture when such placements last longer than 15 days. The report spans a period of time that includes the Biden and the second Trump administration, but shows a spike in the use of solitary confinement in recent months. It comes comes as the president enacts his mass deportation agenda and rapidly expands US immigration enforcement activities and detention facilities. “We certainly have seen an increase in solitary confinement over the last years, but we’ve seen a significant increase from month to month during Trump’s first four months,” said Arevik Avedian, a Harvard law school lecturer and one of the authors of Cruelty Campaign: Solitary Confinement in US Immigration Detention. The research reveals that in the first four months of Trump’s second term, the use solitary confinement grew by an average of 6.5% each month; more than six times the average monthly increase seen during the final months of Joe Biden’s administration. Meanwhile, the number of vulnerable people placed in solitary confinement, such as those with health problems or mental health conditions, rose by 56% in fiscal year 2025 when compared with 2022. Of people with vulnerabilities, placements “lasted more than twice as long as they did in the first fiscal quarter of 2022”. “Perhaps one of the worst findings was that people with vulnerabilities are being placed in solitary confinement twice as long as they would be placed when I started providing this data back in 2021,” Avedian said. “It’s a lot worse conditions, despite all the policies to only put people with vulnerabilities in solitary confinement when there’s no other choice.” Since Trump took office in January, authorities have arrested more than 210,000 people and deported more than 216,000, according to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection published by the Guardian. The number of detainees climbed to a record high this summer, with nearly 60,000 people still in custody across the country as of 8 September. The figures underpinning the report come from the government’s own statistics on the use of solitary confinement from publicly available Ice data as well as from public records requests. The researchers were aided by new federal reporting requirements, implemented last December, that offered an “unprecedented window into the scale and scope of solitary confinement” in US immigrant detention centers, but the authors warn that the report ultimately likely understates the true scope because of Ice’s “flawed data and reporting systems.” US immigrant detention capacity is set to rapidly expand as Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, signed into law in July, dedicated $170bn for immigration and border operations, and made Ice the largest and most heavily funded federal law enforcement agency. “This massive expansion of resources for a system already characterized by torturous conditions, combined with little to no oversight, creates the conditions for catastrophic human rights violations on an unprecedented scale,” the authors write. The report also includes an in-depth analysis of facilities in New England, where researchers found that almost three out of four solitary confinement placements were 15 days or longer and that people, on average, were isolated for about a month. The analysis of individual cases found the “systemic use of solitary confinement for arbitrary and retaliatory purposes”, such as punishing people who had filed grievances or reported sexual assault, and requested basic needs such as showers. The lingering effects of solitary confinement can be disastrous, including “severe and often irreparable psychological and physical consequences”, according to the UN, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, lasting brain damage, hallucinations and increased suicide risk. Researchers highlighted the case of Charles Leo Daniel, who died in Ice custody last year after spending more than 13 years of his life in solitary confinement in different prison facilities, including his final four years in Ice detention. The 61-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago, who died of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, had served one of the longest periods in isolation in Ice custody since 2018, according to a report from the Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington. The authors of Cruelty Campaign issued a series of recommendations for the federal government policymakers, such as ending solitary confinement and stopping the expansion of immigration detention centers. The issue is not new, said Katherine Peeler, a medical adviser with Physicians for Human Rights and one of the report’s authors, but it is getting worse in terms of the numbers and the “callousness and impunity with which it’s being carried out” while protections are being rolled back. “I just hope the public understands the duality of worsening policies and procedures and actions in the context of decreased oversight,” Peeler said. “These are people who are coming to our country seeking help, who are contributing to our economy, who are our neighbors, who play soccer with our kids, and it’s important to recognize that humanity and treat people accordingly.” The Guardian has contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Ice, for comment. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

White House’s immigration blitz runs up against ICE bed capacity

White House border czar Tom Homan is warning of an immigration enforcement blitz in sanctuary cities, as the administration launched enforcement operations in Boston and Chicago this week. The planned surge is running up against a limited number of detention beds. 00:12 Top Stories from POLITICO The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard “We’re almost at capacity,” Homan told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. But “we got beds coming online every day.” His comments underscore an ongoing tension in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda: The mismatch between the White House’s appetite for increased enforcement and the logistical hurdles of rapidly deploying unprecedented resources and deporting people from the U.S., according to administration officials and policy experts. ICE continues to fall short of the White House’s goal of 3,000 daily immigration-related arrests. Trump has talked of surging law enforcement resources in a number of sanctuary cities to clampdown on crime and immigration, including New Orleans and Portland, in addition to Boston and Chicago. Immigration arrests in Washington also increased with Trump’s deployment of the National Guard. “It’s interesting timing because we don’t have the bed space to support all the arrests,” said an administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. As of late August, there were more than 61,000 people in long-term detention. The government has fewer than 65,000 beds, according to the administration official. The number of people in detention since Trump took office has increased by more than 50 percent, as ICE was holding around 39,000 detainees in the final days of the Biden administration. Reports in recent months have documented concerns about conditions inside of facilities, including overcrowding and lengthy stays in temporary holding rooms. The Department of Homeland Security is rushing to spend billions to expand detention capacity across the country and double its bed space by next year. The agency is tapping into $45 billion provided by the GOP’s policy and tax law for detention expansion, and has turned to GOP governors to form federal-state partnerships — part of an effort to build soft-sided tent facilities and use vacant and local prisons to hold detainees. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the agency, “in mere weeks” has “greatly expanded detention space by working with our state partners” — pointing to “Louisiana Lockup” and “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” in Florida. “The One Big Beautiful Bill provided historic funding to help us carry out this mandate, including $45 billion to support the expansion of detention space to maintain an average daily population of 100,000 illegal aliens and 80,000 new ICE beds,” McLaughlin said in a statement. Detention capacity constraints will be more prevalent in regions where beds are scarce, said John Sandweg, former acting ICE director from 2013 to 2014. In Illinois, which has restricted both private detention facilities and local contracts with ICE, detainees from Chicago will likely be sent to Indiana, Missouri and other states in the region, which requires more resources for transfers. The agency will face a similar challenge in Boston, he said. “The number of beds is dramatically up. I think nationwide, they’re OK,” Sandweg said. “But I think the challenge they’ll face is, how do they get the bodies — if they’re making a bunch of arrests in Chicago, how are they getting them into the system?” It remains to be seen just how expansive Trump’s sanctuary city crackdown will be, and whether it will result in a sustained increase in ICE arrests nationwide. Homan’s warnings that ICE will “flood the zone” come a month after the Justice Department released a list of more than 30 sanctuary jurisdictions, with Attorney General Pam Bondi sending letters to local and state leaders, threatening to pull funding, dispatch law enforcement and criminally charge and prosecute local leaders they say haven’t done enough to assist with federal immigration enforcement. “Shame on Gov. Healey and Mayor Wu,” Homan said Tuesday. “Shame on both of them. They should be calling the White House thanking Trump, thanking ICE for making the community safer.” With the sanctuary city crackdown, it still appears that the administration’s enforcement resources are being deployed on an “operation by operation” basis instead of as a “high-volume” deportation pipeline, said a former Trump administration official who was also granted anonymity to speak about the challenges. Even as DHS works to build out its bed capacity, there are still a number of challenges in the removal process the agency is sorting through. “Do they have enough transportation? Can they move people fast enough? There are all sorts of pieces to this pipeline, and if any one of them gets clogged, it slows everything down,” the official said. “From teeing up your deportable targets to your detention and transportation plan for them, to keep running it all at scale smoothly — that’s a big management and logistics challenge.” These hurdles extend to the Trump administration’s battle in the courts. Since Trump took office, his aides have taken steps to speed the removal of undocumented immigrants — with a number of these efforts limited or blocked by the courts. Just last week, a federal judge halted the Trump administration’s efforts to expand a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal. “My perception is that the goal of all of this immigration detention is to facilitate mass deportations. It’s not that they want to be holding people for long periods of time. It’s that they’re trying to stage these removals,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an analyst and lawyer at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank. “If they’re not able to use expanded expedited removal, at least not as much as they had, then that poses a significant detention challenge. Are you holding people for the duration of four-year long immigration court proceedings?” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.