Tens of thousands of people were detained and deported during US government shutdown

US immigration officials arrested, detained and deported tens of thousands of people in operations nationwide during the federal government shutdown, new data reveals. The arrests have led to a marked increase in the number of people held in immigration jails, with more than 65,000 currently detained nationwide – the highest number of people in immigration detention ever. While other federal employees were furloughed and without pay and many public services were limited or unavailable, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) kept up enforcement operations nationwide, in line with the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda. This included detaining thousands of people with no criminal record. In total, ICE arrested and detained approximately 54,000 people during the shutdown. The agency also deported approximately 56,000 people during this time. Customs and Border Protection additionally arrested and thousands more during the same period, and ICE arrest figures do not account for all people held in ICE detention. a man with a hat and glasses US veteran considers civil lawsuit after he was arrested and injured at anti-ICE protest Read more The latest data covers 1 October through 15 November, the entire period of the government shutdown, which ended on 12 November, plus an additional three days. Thursday evening’s release of the official statistics is the first time since September that ICE has published data on ongoing arrests and detentions. The Guardian, using ICE’s data, has continued to track the number of people arrested, detained and deported by the agency. During the shutdown, top officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), repeatedly claimed that immigration enforcement officers were arresting the “worst of the worst”. But ICE’s latest data shows that more than 21,000 people with no criminal record were arrested and detained by ICE, with the number again surpassing those who have been convicted of a crime or with pending criminal charges. Immigrants with no criminal record continue to be the largest group in US immigration detention. Being undocumented in the US is not a crime; it is a civil infraction. The 65,000 people detained by ICE in various facilities, including many run by private-sector contractors, is the “highest number of detainees, at least since the start of our modern era of immigration detention from the 1980s”, said Adam Sawyer, director of research at Relevant Research, a group of academics and researchers who work on immigration data. During the first week of Donald Trump’s second term, in January of this year, there were 950 people in immigration detention who were arrested by ICE with no criminal history, according to past ICE data collected by the Guardian. But the latest data shows a 2,131% jump, from 950 to nearly 22,000. ICE has arrested and detained more than 16,000 people with criminal backgrounds and nearly 15,300 people with pending charges, the latest data shows. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to This Week in Trumpland Free newsletter A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration Enter your email address Marketing preferences Get updates about our journalism and ways to support and enjoy our work. Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion “This coincides with the Trump administration’s enforcement hysteria in Chicago, which Trump justified as needed to catch dangerous ‘illegal’ criminals,” wrote Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University, about the latest data release. Kocher analyzes ICE numbers, tracking arrests and detention statistics. The latest data calls into question Trump’s “outrageous and inflammatory claims”, he added. Earlier this year, top DHS officials directed ICE to arrest at least 3,000 people each day, or a million per year. In leaked emails obtained by the Guardian, ICE officials were instructed to also arrest “collaterals”, the agency’s word for people who just happen to be present during an arrest operation, without arrest warrants. An Ice agent in Chicago in January. US immigration officers ordered to arrest more people even without warrants Read more The administration has significantly changed the way immigration enforcement is being conducted as well, as ICE works with a colossal surge in funding. Massive immigration enforcement operations have targeted major cities across the US, as other federal agencies are ordered to assist in immigration arrests. A growing number of local officials have also being deputized to conduct immigration enforcement work in collaboration with ICE. Previously, other agencies within the DHS played a bigger role in immigration-related arrests at the US-Mexico border. But with Trump’s return to the White House, further restrictions along the border have led to a decrease in the number of arrests by border officials. Now those same border officials, including border patrol agents, have been deployed to the interior of the US to assist ICE in its arrest efforts. With ICE’s outsized budget, and the increase of arrest operations nationwide, immigration officials have also arrested people with legal status, including citizens. The Trump administration has engaged in massive operations in major US cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Migrants thought they were in court for a routine hearing. Instead, it was a deportation trap

The government lawyer knew what was coming as she stood inside a courtroom and texted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent waiting in a corridor a few feet away. “I can’t do this,” the lawyer said in a text message as she looked at her docket of cases. “This is a new emotional load.” “I understand,” the agent responded. “Hopefully we meet again in a better situation.” Nearby, a Cuban man who had lived in the United States for years stepped from an elevator and into the courtroom where the government lawyer was waiting for what the man thought was a routine hearing. Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel. Follow on WhatsApp The man was doing what the law required, and brought along his wife, a legal resident, and their 7-month-old infant. Then the lawyer quickly moved to have the man’s asylum claim dismissed and a judge agreed, making the man eligible for “expedited removal.” As he left the courtroom, the man was swarmed by plainclothes immigration agents who had been surveilling him. A struggle ensued and the wife’s shouts could be heard from the hallway as the lawyer moved on to the next case. The agent replied four minutes later: “Got him.” Similar scenes of courthouse arrests, part of a makeover of the immigration courts under President Donald Trump, are playing out across the United States as his call for mass deportations of migrants is executed with unusually aggressive tactics. An asylum seeker from Ecuador hugs her father as he is detained by federal agents, Thursday, July 31, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) An asylum seeker from Ecuador hugs her father as he is detained by federal agents, Thursday, July 31, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Trump’s pledge during his 2024 campaign to impose hard-line immigration policies was a major reason he won a second term. Now that Americans have seen how the plan is being implemented, there are signs that many think he has gone too far. About 57% of adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a survey this month by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Over several months, reporters for The Associated Press observed immigration court proceedings in 21 cities. Hearings repeatedly ended with cases dismissed by the government, allowing plainclothes federal agents to carry out arrests in courthouse hallways in close coordination with attorneys from the Department of Homeland Security. Screenshots of the text messages were obtained by The Associated Press from a government official who feared reprisal and provided them on condition of anonymity. The messages offer a rare look at how the nation’s 75 immigration courts are churning out rulings in an assembly-line like fashion and how, for many people, the courtrooms have become deportation traps. Marlon Garcia, an asylum seeker from Ecuador, turns to look back at his wife and children as he is detained after the conclusion of his immigration hearing, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Marlon Garcia, an asylum seeker from Ecuador, turns to look back at his wife and children as he is detained after the conclusion of his immigration hearing, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Courthouse arrests coordinated days in advance In a court system with a backlog of about 3.8 million asylum cases, families have been torn apart and lives upended. Due process seemingly is an afterthought. “When Americans picture a courtroom, there are a few core expectations” of fairness, dignity and impartiality, said Ashley Tabaddor, a former immigration judge in Los Angeles and past president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “That’s what makes a court — not a room with a bench or person with a robe,” she said. “But what we have here is a vision completely turned on its head.” Over the past nine months, the Trump administration has fired almost 90 immigration judges seen by Trump’s allies as too lenient, directed masked officers to handcuff migrants at closed asylum hearings and sent memos instructing judges to fall into line. Unlike federal courts, where there are strict rules of procedure and judges have lifetime tenure, the Justice Department runs immigration courts and the attorney general can fire the judges with fewer restraints. Nine current officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Most expressed deep misgivings about punishing people who had followed the rules and showed up for court hearings. “As a government attorney, my duty is to uphold the law and protect the public interest — not to secure removal or detention outcomes by default,” a government lawyer wrote to the American Bar Association seeking professional guidance. But that is not how cases are often unfolding. Courthouse arrests are coordinated days in advance to meet quotas with little regard for the particulars of a case, according to several of the U.S. officials. According to one official, Homeland Security lawyers note on a spreadsheet which cases are “amenable” to dismissal, allowing an asylum-seeker to be immediately rearrested and placed in expedited removal proceedings. Most of those detained are men without lawyers who entered the U.S. alone and are expected to appear in court in person. Contrary to Trump’s claims that he is targeting the ‘worst of the worst,’ most don’t have a criminal conviction, according to a Cato Institute analysis of ICE data. ICE reviews the spreadsheet and selects which people it wants to pursue if cases are dismissed. On the hearing date, federal agents communicate directly with DHS lawyers, who act as prosecutors in immigration courts. The lawyer often provides near verbatim updates of the proceedings over text message to agents waiting outside the courtroom. “Black shirt? Let me know if the judge dismissed,” an ICE agent texted during one hearing. American Gateways attorney Erika Gonzalez talks with a woman before she attends her court hearing, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) American Gateways attorney Erika Gonzalez talks with a woman before she attends her court hearing, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Lack of independence limits immigration court’s authority Almost from the outset, immigration courts were plagued by a lack of resources, authority and judicial independence. The courts were established in 1952, but it was not until 1973 that “special inquiry officers” were given the “judge” title and allowed to wear judicial robes. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, was created in 1983. But that agency remained a part of the Justice Department, giving the attorney general authority to override decisions. “We were a legal Cinderella,” said Dana Leigh Marks, who retired as an immigration judge in 2021 after a 34-year career. “No other court in the nation functions like this.” The first Trump administration undertook a series of changes to reduce the case backlog, including instructing judges to deny entire categories of asylum claims such as for victims of gang or domestic violence. It also set up a dashboard that would become the bane of many judges: Red, yellow and green gauges measure each judge’s performance on goals ranging from completed cases — a minimum of 700 annually, regardless of complexity — to how many custody cases were decided on their first hearings. To meet the metrics, judges must race through dockets, sometimes devoting mere minutes to evaluate asylum-seekers’ claims. “It’s like deciding death penalty cases in a traffic court setting,” Marks said. A federal agent waves as he departs from immigration court after making arrests on Thursday, June 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) A federal agent waves as he departs from immigration court after making arrests on Thursday, June 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Administration refers to immigration judges as ‘inferior officers’ When Trump returned to the White House in January, his allies took direct aim at the court. Since then, the Justice Department has issued 52 policy memos — more than the previous six years combined — making it easier to hire and fire judges and warning against pro-migrant bias. The memos highlight the courts’ weakened status by referring to judges as “inferior officers” — a rarely used term taken from the Constitution. In early September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he would lend 600 military lawyers to the immigration courts, about equal to the current number of judges. The goal, according to the administration, is to more effectively reduce caseloads by widening the pool of potential judges to include people already steeped in administrative law. But many migrant advocates are concerned the incoming judges lack the necessary experience to decide asylum cases. “It makes as much sense as having a cardiologist do a hip replacement,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The administration has pushed back against criticism it is co-opting the courts to accelerate its deportation goals. In a statement, Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre said DHS decides whether to arrest migrants and that most judges consider it an “honor rather than an insult” to be called an inferior officer empowered by the Constitution and serving at the will of the attorney general. Baldassarre likened a record surge of asylum seekers during the Biden administration to an “improper conspiracy between DHS and the Immigration Courts to effectuate an unlawful amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.” The Justice Department, she said, had “restored the integrity, impartiality, and independence of the Courts.” DHS did not respond to repeated email and phone requests for comment. FILE - Demonstrators hold signs and chant during a protest against deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File) FILE - Demonstrators hold signs and chant during a protest against deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File) Government attorneys fear harassment, haunted by arrests For some inside the courts, work has become a stressful, lonesome grind. Fear prevails. Resumes are being updated. One DHS lawyer described being haunted at night by the sound of jangling shackles of migrants the lawyer helped arrest. The lawyer joined the government after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, believing that protecting America’s borders was a patriotic duty. The lawyer still cherishes a signed copy of Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night,” which was handed out at a work seminar. “Think higher, feel deeper,” reads the author’s inscription of the book, which is marked DHS “Training Material.” Today, its message torments. “This isn’t what any of us signed up for,” the lawyer said. After a turbulent summer, the courthouses are starting to look lonely, too. With word spreading that a trap had been laid, many migrants, fearing arrest, are asking to appear online or are skipping hearings altogether. Meanwhile, ambitious managers are publicly upbraiding those who raise doubts about the legality of locking up migrants with no criminal record in packed facilities. In a recent town hall with DHS principal legal adviser Charles Wall, several lawyers complained about the pressure, confusing orders and lack of resources, according to notes from the meeting shared with AP. Wall said the pace is likely to continue for years, the notes say. When one federal employee asked about bringing firearms to work for fear of harassment by activists inside courthouses, Wall said that judges should not hesitate to kick out the public. Wall could not be reached for comment. Federal agents escort handcuffed detainees after arresting them during a regular check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Federal agents escort handcuffed detainees after arresting them during a regular check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) ‘I want to go back to my country’ The harsh tactics have had one effect the administration wants: Voluntary migrant departures have soared, with more than 14,000 people seeking court permission to self-deport in the first eight months of 2025, according to federal data collected by Mobile Pathways, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that pushes for transparency in migration proceedings. That is more than the previous five years combined. The number is almost certainly an undercount because most migrants do not withdraw their asylum claim before self-deporting. At immigration court in Tacoma, Washington, the detainees came up one after the other with the same plea. “I want to go back to my country,” a Venezuelan man told Judge Theresa Scala. “I want to leave the country,” said a man from Mexico. Immigrants know what they face: detention centers with ominous names — “Alligator Alcatraz,” “Louisiana Lockup” and “Speedway Slammer” — as well as workplace raids and neighborhood dragnets. Tania Nemer, right, poses for a portrait with her father, Manuel Nemer, inside his business, Manny's Pub, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) Tania Nemer, right, poses for a portrait with her father, Manuel Nemer, inside his business, Manny’s Pub, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) Fired judges targeted as too liberal Tania Nemer believes she was cut out to be a judge. From the bench at immigration court in Cleveland, she prided herself on listening carefully to each person’s asylum claim. “There’s a simplicity about it that I just loved,” she told the AP. “If you can provide justice in an efficient manner, you can really help a lot of people.” The decision to apply to become an immigration judge in 2023 was deeply personal. Her father fled turmoil in Lebanon and arrived in Ohio at 16 with $6 in his pocket. He washed cars, learned English and eventually opened a namesake bar — Manny’s Pub — that allowed him to provide for his family. When Nemer married, her wedding gift was the unspent dollar bills, so she would never forget her roots. But Nemer’s fondness for the law came crashing down Feb. 5. In the middle of a hearing, her supervisor opened the door of her packed courtroom and told her she needed to come with him. “As soon as he said ‘Grab your ID,’ I knew I was being terminated,” she said. Still in shock, she was handed a two-paragraph letter, digitally signed by Sirce Owen, the acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review. It said she was being removed because the agency “has determined that retaining you is not appropriate, and we thank you for your service.” No justification was given. But she thinks she knows some of the reasons: her Arab-sounding name, a history of previously representing migrants and diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, course work from Cornell University. She filed a discrimination claim with the Justice Department to find out why she was fired; the complaint was dismissed. Nemer was the first judge fired after Trump returned to the White House. But 86 have been sacked since. Dozens more took the Department of Government Efficiency’s “Fork in the Road” resignation offer. The majority were hired under Democratic President Joe Biden and are still serving two-year probationary periods, according to a list of the fired judges obtained by the AP. It is unclear who ordered the firings or how they were selected. But those removed granted asylum at markedly higher rates than their peers — in about half of all cases since August 2023 compared with 34% nationwide, according to Mobile Pathways. Among those purged were all 10 that appeared on the DHS Bureaucrat Watch List, a website created last year with funding from The Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 was a blueprint for the Trump administration’s policies and personnel decisions. The list includes names, Facebook photos, salaries and campaign donations for what it calls “America’s most subversive immigration bureaucrats.” One target was Emmett Soper, a judge in northern Virginia who worked at EOIR headquarters during the Biden administration. “As soon as I saw that, I knew the rules were changing, that I was under some kind of microscope that didn’t exist before,” he said. Tom Jones, the conservative creator of the website, declined to be interviewed. Baldassarre, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said the department is not targeting specific individuals for firing but does continually evaluate all judges. “All judges have a legal, ethical, and professional obligation to be impartial and neutral in adjudicating cases,” Baldassarre said. “If a judge violates that obligation by demonstrating a systematic bias in favor of or against either party, EOIR is obligated to take action to preserve the integrity of its system.” The wave of firings and new directives from the Justice Department has had a chilling effect. Denial of motions to appear for hearings online tripled after a March memo repealing Biden-era guidelines instructing judges to generally grant such requests, according to Mobile Pathways data. Denial of continuances, which allow migrants extra time to seek legal counsel, have also spiked as have the number of cases classified as abandoned. Nemer returned to immigration court in October for the first time since being fired to represent a Mexican client she has known for 20 years and who was picked up by unidentified agents. While the man was jailed, his girlfriend, who was five months pregnant, miscarried. Word of the former judge’s return quickly spread and a stream of former colleagues came to the courtroom to hug her and express their dismay over her firing. “By the third hug I couldn’t hold it in and just started crying,” she said. Federal agents detain a woman in the waiting room of an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Federal agents detain a woman in the waiting room of an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Legal assistance for migrants dries up after Trump budget cuts Bug spray, sunscreen, fans and umbrellas compete with legal binders in the bed of a Toyota pickup across the street from immigration court in San Antonio. This is the new office of American Gateways. In April, the administration eliminated programs worth $30 million to provide free legal assistance to migrants, the vast majority of whom represent themselves in court. But lawyers for American Gateways keep coming, four times a week, setting up in a parking lot. The conference room they once occupied inside the courthouse is now used as a break room for ICE agents. Assistance ranges from helping immigrants file motions to rehearsing what they will say to judges. When they can, they sign people up for virtual appearances to minimize the risk of arrest. FILE - Marco Chipantiza, right, and Maria Chipantiza, left, an Ecuadorian immigrant couple, hold pictures of their daughter, Joselyn, 20, an Ecuadorian asylum seeker, with her 6-year-old son, during a press conference outside the Jacob K. Javits federal building on July 3, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File) FILE - Marco Chipantiza, right, and Maria Chipantiza, left, an Ecuadorian immigrant couple, hold pictures of their daughter, Joselyn, 20, an Ecuadorian asylum seeker, with her 6-year-old son, during a press conference outside the Jacob K. Javits federal building on July 3, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File) Migrants rush to federal court to seek release from detention The gutting of the immigration court has driven migrants to one place where standards of judicial independence are upheld: federal court. Since May 15, when courthouse sweeps began, migrants have filed more than 3,000 habeas corpus petitions — to determine if someone is lawfully held in custody — seeking release. The flood of claims threatens to clog the already crowded federal docket, which has little authority in immigration cases. “The administration is attempting to press the gas at such an unreasonable speed without considering due process,” said Annelise Araujo, a Boston-based immigration attorney. One petition, filed in Miami, was from a Cuban man detained the same day he and his American wife and 10-month-old daughter were moving into their first home. Several petitioners said they had survived torture at the hands of gangs in Mexico, Ecuador and Venezuela. Another legal challenge was introduced by an HIV-positive man from Brazil taken into custody four days after his husband died of a heart attack. With the body of Frederico Abreu’s husband still at the funeral home, ICE officials knocked on his door stating they had documents belonging to the deceased man. The wife and daughters of an asylum seeker from Ecuador cry after he was detained in immigration court, Thursday. July 31, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) The wife and daughters of an asylum seeker from Ecuador cry after he was detained in immigration court, Thursday. July 31, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) A father pulled away from his sobbing family Those unable to afford a lawyer so they can sue in federal court have little recourse. One was a man from Honduras who showed up at the northern Virginia immigration court with his wife and their infant baby. Another child, a son, unable to walk, pushed himself in a wheelchair studded with flashing, colorful lights. The family, fearful of further immigration problems, did not want to be identified. The judge denied a government request to deport the man. But seconds later, as the family stepped from the courtroom, they were stopped by four ICE agents. The wife sobbed, hanging on her husband’s arm as she pleaded: “Por favor, Por favor.” The husband clutched the sleeping infant’s carrier. Their son sat playing with a cell phone. “I need you to go ahead and say goodbye,” an agent told the man. Crying, the man knelt to hug his son, who clung to his father, yelling repeatedly: “Papa! Papa!” Finally, the father managed to pull himself away and started to leave with the ICE officers. The boy tried to chase them. But the ICE agent was holding the back of the wheelchair as the boy futilely pumped his arms. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Nearly 200,000 Ukrainians in US thrown into legal limbo by Trump immigration crackdown

WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Kateryna Golizdra has survived six months in legal limbo - so far. She thinks she can hold out another six months, waiting for Donald Trump's administration to decide the fate of a humanitarian program that allowed some 260,000 people who fled the war in Ukraine to live and work in the United States. When her legal status lapsed in May, Golizdra, 35, automatically became vulnerable to deportation. She lost her work permit and was forced to leave a job earning over $50,000 a year as a manager at the Ritz-Carlton in Fort Lauderdale. Golizdra also lost the health insurance that she used to cover check-ups for a liver condition. And she can no longer send money to her mother, who was also displaced and lives in Germany, she said. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. Advertisement · Scroll to continue The Trump administration's processing delays on the humanitarian program for Ukrainians launched by former Democratic President Joe Biden left nearly 200,000 people at risk of losing their legal status as of March 31, according to internal U.S. government data reviewed by Reuters. The number of Ukrainians affected by the delays has not been previously reported. The humanitarian program, introduced in April 2022, allowed nearly 260,000 Ukrainians into the U.S. for an initial two-year period. That's a small share of the 5.9 million Ukrainian refugees worldwide, 5.3 million of whom are in Europe, according to United Nations refugee figures. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Golizdra said she has no idea when - or if - her permission to stay in the United States might be renewed, threatening her short-lived sense of security in America. While she waits for an update on her application, she could potentially be arrested by federal immigration authorities, three former immigration officials said. 'CONSTANT STRESS' The last six months have felt like she is on a “hamster wheel," Golizdra said. “It’s a constant stress, anxiety,” she said. “If I will need to leave the States, then I will have to build something again.” Reuters spoke with two dozen Ukrainians who lost their work permits - and their jobs - due to delays in processing renewals, including tech workers, a preschool teacher, a financial planner, an interior designer and a college student. They described digging into their savings, seeking out community support and taking on debt to support themselves while they wait for a decision on their status. Some of the people interviewed by Reuters said they were worried they could be arrested by U.S. immigration authorities. Others said they were staying indoors, or had left the U.S. for Canada, Europe and South America. Returning to Ukraine is not an option. Golizdra's home in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, was set ablaze in March 2022 when Russian troops stormed the city. After Ukrainian forces retook the town, they found hundreds of bodies, including of civilians who were victims of extrajudicial killings. TRUMP'S SHIFTING UKRAINE POLICY The Trump administration paused processing applications and renewals of the Ukrainian humanitarian program in January, citing security reasons. After a contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump said in March that he was weighing whether to revoke the Ukrainians' legal status entirely - a plan first reported by Reuters. Trump ultimately did not end the program and in May, a federal judge ordered officials to resume processing renewals. Item 1 of 5 Kateryna Golizdra holds her Ukrainian passport for a photograph outside her home in Margate, Florida, U.S., November 17, 2025. REUTERS/Maria Alejandra Cardona [1/5]Kateryna Golizdra holds her Ukrainian passport for a photograph outside her home in Margate, Florida, U.S., November 17, 2025. REUTERS/Maria Alejandra Cardona Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab But U.S. immigration officials have processed only 1,900 renewal applications for Ukrainians and other nationalities since then, a fraction of those with expiring status, according to U.S. government data released last week as part of a lawsuit. Meanwhile, a spending package Trump signed into law in July added a $1,000 fee to such humanitarian applications - on top of a fee of $1,325 per individual. The White House referred questions about the Ukrainian humanitarian program to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to requests for comment. U.S. Representative Mike Quigley, a Democrat in the Chicago area, said his office has received requests for assistance from more than 200 Ukrainians in limbo. “There's a fear that if they haven't completed their application, if they haven't gone through the whole process, they're vulnerable for deportation,” Quigley said. Anne Smith, the executive director and regulatory counsel of the Ukraine Immigration Task Force, a legal coalition formed to aid those who fled the war to the U.S., said her attorney network was receiving multiple calls per week from Ukrainians saying they have family members detained by immigration authorities. She said Ukrainians have been arrested at construction sites, while doing food delivery or working as Uber or truck drivers, as well as in broader sweeps in Chicago and greater Cleveland. Brian Snyder, a product marketing manager in Raleigh, North Carolina , who has sponsored three Ukrainian families , said people who followed the rules are being treated unfairly. One Ukrainian woman recently asked if he would serve as her emergency contact if she was picked up by immigration officers, he said. He knew of another family where a teenage son's parole was renewed while the parents and two younger children were left waiting, he said. “All of this dysfunction and uncertainty is just introducing a tremendous amount of stress in these families’ lives,” he said. SOME UKRAINIANS 'SELF DEPORT' Six of 24 Ukrainians interviewed by Reuters have left the U.S. rather than risk ending up in immigration jail or being sent to Latin America or Africa, as the Trump administration has done with other hard-to-deport immigrants. Yevhenii Padafa, a 31-year-old software engineer who moved to Brooklyn in September 2023, applied to renew his status in March. His application sat pending until it expired in September. Worried that he could be barred from the U.S. in the future if he remained without legal status, he tried to "self deport" using a government app known as CBP One. The Trump administration in May promised a free outbound plane ticket and $1,000 “exit bonus” for those using the app. Padafa decided to go to Argentina, which has a lower cost of living than other countries and offers a humanitarian program for Ukrainians. But the app would not book him a ticket there. A U.S. border official told him the flight would need to be booked to Ukraine, he said. He was counting on the free flight and $1,000 bonus. Arriving in Buenos Aires in mid-November with little money, he planned to sell a laptop to cover initial rent for an apartment. “If I return to Ukraine, I’ll just go to the frontline," he said. “I’d rather be homeless somewhere than go to Ukraine.” Reporting by Ted Hesson and Disha Raychaudhuri in Washington, Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Maria Alejandra Cardona in Margate, Florida; Editing by Craig Timberg and Suzanne Goldenberg For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

An immigration court error 6 years ago could lead to release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

GREENBELT, Maryland — The Trump administration’s highest-profile deportation case appears to be on the verge of unraveling due to an oversight by an immigration judge six years ago. Trump officials illegally deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant then living in Maryland who was sent in March to an anti-terrorism prison in his home country, before they reluctantly returned him to the U.S. under a court order. Before he returned, officials criminally charged him with immigrant smuggling. The legal saga has already made one trip to the Supreme Court. 00:02 02:00 Read More But a court hearing Thursday indicated that Abrego’s immediate prospects for release from custody hinge on a key step Baltimore Immigration Judge David Jones apparently failed to take in October 2019 when he ruled Abrego could not be deported to El Salvador based on his claim he was likely to be persecuted if returned there. In a detailed, 15-page order, Jones considered and credited Abrego’s assertion that he could be targeted in that country based on gang-related threats to his family’s pupusa business. The judge said it was too late for Abrego to get asylum, but granted him protection from being sent back to El Salvador. But Jones never explicitly ordered Abrego deported. “There is no order of removal in the docket, in the record,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said Thursday near the beginning of the four-hour hearing. “You can’t fake it ‘til you make it. You got to have it. … You have to have the order. It’s got to be an order memorialized somewhere and I don’t have it.” The formal deportation order is potentially crucial to Abrego’s fate because immigration judges typically specify which country immigrants will be deported to. That is a key point of contention in Abrego’s current predicament. Trump administration officials are seeking to send him to Liberia — a country he has no ties to — and Abrego’s lawyers are urging that he be sent to Costa Rica or allowed to remain in the U.S. But Jones’ ruling doesn’t say where Abrego was to be sent, or even that he had to leave the U.S. “It’s critically important,” Abrego lawyer Andrew Rossman told Xinis. “It would be an obvious due process violation to remove someone without a final order of removal. … I think the entire structure the government has built crumbles if there is no final order of removal.” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign dismissed the missing order as a technicality and said the notion that Abrego was being ordered deported was implicit in Jones’ finding that he could not be sent to El Salvador. “I think this represents, necessarily, the final order of removal,” Ensign said. “But [Jones] made a mistake and there is no order of removal,” Xinis interjected. “I think that is requiring more formality than the law requires,” Ensign replied. A ruling that Abrego was never formally ordered deported could allow him to make a new asylum claim or take other steps to remain in the U.S. that aren’t open to someone under a deportation order. The hearing Thursday also focused on where Abrego could be sent if he is deported. After Abrego was returned to the U.S. earlier this year and put in criminal proceedings in Tennessee on charges he drove migrants from Texas to the East Coast as part of an immigrant smuggling ring, Abrego’s lawyers and the government neared an agreement that he would be deported to Costa Rica. However, that deal fell apart over Abrego’s unwillingness to plead guilty in the criminal case. The Trump administration now contends that Costa Rica is no longer a viable destination, proposing instead a series of African countries. Immigration officials’ current plan is to send Abrego to Liberia, a nation in West Africa founded in the 1800s by people formerly enslaved in the U.S. Xinis repeatedly prodded lawyers for the government Thursday to reconsider the possibility of sending Abrego to Costa Rica and made clear she understood why he was resisting the African nations. “He’s been to CECOT and back,” the judge observed, referring to the notorious anti-terrorism prison Abrego was held in after his deportation from the U.S. She added that Abrego has “no cultural ties, no ties whatsoever” to Liberia. “He will be completely removed from everything and everyone he knows.” Xinis heard from one witness Thursday about the state of Abrego’s deportation proceedings: John Cantu, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting assistant director for removal operations. Cantu said a State Department attorney advised him that Costa Rica’s earlier willingness to take Abrego was “non-binding” and sending him there now would require “further negotiation and likely additional commitments by the United States.” However, Cantu said he was unable to provide additional details about the issues with Costa Rica or the promises by Liberia because the sum total of his knowledge on those matters came from a five-minute video conference where State Department lawyer Carl Anderson read Cantu a prepared statement. Cantu’s testimony irritated Xinis. She said she had no bone to pick with Cantu, but that his appearance continued a pattern of the administration failing to comply with her orders to produce witnesses knowledgeable about the efforts to find so-called third countries to take Abrego. “This witness said nothing today,” the judge said later in the hearing. “Mr. Cantu knew nothing about anything. … Today was a zero, in my view.” Watch: The Conversation Play Video34:26 Seth Moulton on his Senate bid, Venezuela and the Epstein files | The Conversation At least twice during the hearing, Xinis alluded to the fact that a request remains pending for contempt-of-court sanctions against the government for allegedly defying her orders earlier in the legal wrangling over what the courts concluded was his illegal deportation to El Salvador. Abrego’s lawyers have argued that the administration’s current insistence on sending their client to Africa is an act of retaliation for embarrassment he caused President Donald Trump and other officials in that fight and his current unwillingness to plead guilty in the criminal case. Xinis didn’t go that far, but said she found it strange the government was unwilling to give her a detailed explanation of why Costa Rica appeared to be off the table. “It’s so odd to me and that’s really being polite,” she said. For now, Abrego remains in immigration detention in Pennsylvania and an order Xinis issued earlier in the case blocks his deportation. Even if she orders his release, he faces a trial beginning in January in Nashville in the criminal case. Xinis warned both sides Thursday that it will take a while for her to rule and she made one more pitch to the administration to reach a deal with Abrego. “It’s not going to be a quick decision,” Xinis warned. “If the government wants to moot it, it sounds like Mr. Abrego is still open to going to Costa Rica.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns

The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found. The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement. Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar. Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor ordinary Americans’ daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years. More coverage Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pull a man out of an elevator as he and his daughter attempt to leave following a hearing in immigration court, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Migrants thought they were in court for a routine hearing. Instead, it was a deportation trap Revelers throw beads from the balcony of the Royal Sonesta Hotel onto crowds on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras festivities in the French Quarter in New Orleans, March 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File) Multicultural New Orleans awaits arrival of ‘Swamp Sweep’ immigration crackdown New York Attorney General, Letitia James, speaks after pleading not guilty outside the United States District Court on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/John Clark,File) Judge tosses DOJ lawsuit challenging a New York law barring immigration agents from state courts The Border Patrol has recently grown even more powerful through collaborations with other agencies, drawing information from license plate readers nationwide run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and, increasingly, local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants. Texas law enforcement agencies have asked Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers, documents show. Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel. Follow on WhatsApp This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. Under the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars. This investigation, the first to reveal details of how the program works on America’s roads, is based on interviews with eight former government officials with direct knowledge of the program who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media, as well as dozens of federal, state and local officials, attorneys and privacy experts. The AP also reviewed thousands of pages of court and government documents, state grant and law enforcement data, and arrest reports. The Border Patrol has for years hidden details of its license plate reader program, trying to keep any mention of the program out of court documents and police reports, former officials say, even going so far as to propose dropping charges rather than risk revealing any details about the placement and use of their covert license plate readers. Readers are often disguised along highways in traffic safety equipment like drums and barrels. The Border Patrol has defined its own criteria for which drivers’ behavior should be deemed suspicious or tied to drug or human trafficking, stopping people for anything from driving on backcountry roads, being in a rental car or making short trips to the border region. The agency’s network of cameras now extends along the southern border in Texas, Arizona and California, and also monitors drivers traveling near the U.S.-Canada border. And it reaches far into the interior, impacting residents of big metropolitan areas and people driving to and from large cities such as Chicago and Detroit, as well as from Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Houston to and from the Mexican border region. In one example, AP found the agency has placed at least four cameras in the greater Phoenix area over the years, one of which was more than 120 miles (193 kilometers) from the Mexican frontier, beyond the agency’s usual jurisdiction of 100 miles (161 kilometers) from a land or sea border. The AP also identified several camera locations in metropolitan Detroit, as well as one placed near the Michigan-Indiana border to capture traffic headed towards Chicago or Gary, Indiana, or other nearby destinations. A license plate reader used by U.S. Border Patrol is hidden in a traffic cone while capturing passing vehicles on AZ Highway 85, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Gila Bend, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) A license plate reader used by U.S. Border Patrol is hidden in a traffic cone while capturing passing vehicles on AZ Highway 85, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Gila Bend, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Border Patrol’s parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said they use license plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and are “governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.” “For national security reasons, we do not detail the specific operational applications,” the agency said. While the U.S. Border Patrol primarily operates within 100 miles of the border, it is legally allowed “to operate anywhere in the United States,” the agency added. While collecting license plates from cars on public roads has generally been upheld by courts, some legal scholars see the growth of large digital surveillance networks such as Border Patrol’s as raising constitutional questions. Courts have started to recognize that “large-scale surveillance technology that’s capturing everyone and everywhere at every time” might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches, said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University. Today, predictive surveillance is embedded into America’s roadways. Mass surveillance techniques are also used in a range of other countries, from authoritarian governments such as China to, increasingly, democracies in the U.K. and Europe in the name of national security and public safety. “They are collecting mass amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do, and who they know … engaging in dragnet surveillance of Americans on the streets, on the highways, in their cities, in their communities,” Nicole Ozer, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco, said in response to the AP’s findings. “These surveillance systems do not make communities safer.” ‘We did everything right and had nothing to hide’ A license plate reader stands along the side of a road, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Stockdale, Texas. (AP Photo/David Goldman) A license plate reader stands along the side of a road, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Stockdale, Texas. (AP Photo/David Goldman) In February, Lorenzo Gutierrez Lugo, a driver for a small trucking company that specializes in transporting furniture, clothing and other belongings to families in Mexico, was driving south to the border city of Brownsville, Texas, carrying packages from immigrant communities in South Carolina’s low country. Gutierrez Lugo was pulled over by a local police officer in Kingsville, a small Texas city near Corpus Christi that lies about 100 miles from the Mexican border. The officer, Richard Beltran, cited the truck’s speed of 50 mph (80 kph) in a 45 mph (72 kph) zone as the reason for the stop. But speeding was a pretext: Border Patrol had requested the stop and said the black Dodge pickup with a white trailer could contain contraband, according to police and court records. U.S. Route 77 passes through Kingsville, a route that state and federal authorities scrutinize for trafficking of drugs, money and people. Gutierrez Lugo, who through a lawyer declined to comment, was interrogated about the route he drove, based on license plate reader data, per the police report and court records. He consented to a search of his car by Beltran and Border Patrol agents, who eventually arrived to assist. Image recognition analysis overlaid on drivers and vehicles on Texas roads. (AP video Marshall Ritzel) They unearthed no contraband. But Beltran arrested Gutierrez Lugo on suspicion of money laundering and engaging in organized criminal activity because he was carrying thousands of dollars in cash — money his supervisor said came directly from customers in local Latino communities, who are accustomed to paying in cash. No criminal charges were ultimately brought against Gutierrez Lugo and an effort by prosecutors to seize the cash, vehicle and trailer as contraband was eventually dropped. Luis Barrios owns the trucking company, Paquetería El Guero, that employed the driver. He told AP he hires people with work authorization in the United States and was taken aback by the treatment of his employee and his trailer. “We did everything right and had nothing to hide, and that was ultimately what they found,” said Barrios, who estimates he spent $20,000 in legal fees to clear his driver’s name and get the trailer out of impound. Border Patrol agents and local police have many names for these kinds of stops: “whisper,” “intel” or “wall” stops. Those stops are meant to conceal — or wall off — that the true reason for the stop is a tip from federal agents sitting miles away, watching data feeds showing who’s traveling on America’s roads and predicting who is “suspicious,” according to documents and people interviewed by the AP. In 2022, a man from Houston had his car searched from top to bottom by Texas sheriff’s deputies outside San Antonio after they got a similar tipoff from Border Patrol agents about the driver, Alek Schott. Alek Schott stands next to a Flock Safety license plate reader in his neighborhood, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Alek Schott stands next to a Flock Safety license plate reader in his neighborhood, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Federal agents observed that Schott had made an overnight trip from Houston to Carrizo Springs, Texas, and back, court records show. They knew he stayed overnight in a hotel about 80 miles (129 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border. They knew that in the morning Schott met a female colleague there before they drove together to a business meeting. At Border Patrol’s request, Schott was pulled over by Bexar County sheriff’s deputies. The deputies held Schott by the side of the road for more than an hour, searched his car and found nothing. “The beautiful thing about the Texas Traffic Code is there’s thousands of things you can stop a vehicle for,” said Joel Babb, the sheriff’s deputy who stopped Schott’s car, in a deposition in a lawsuit Schott filed alleging violations of his constitutional rights. Alek Schott watches police body camera video of his vehicle search, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, while sitting at his home in Houston. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Alek Schott watches police body camera video of his vehicle search, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, while sitting at his home in Houston. (AP Photo/David Goldman) According to testimony and documents released as part of Schott’s lawsuit, Babb was on a group chat with federal agents called Northwest Highway. Babb deleted the WhatsApp chat off his phone but Schott’s lawyers were able to recover some of the text messages. Through a public records act request, the AP also obtained more than 70 pages of the Northwest Highway group chats from June and July of this year from a Texas county that had at least one sheriff’s deputy active in the chat. The AP was able to associate numerous phone numbers in both sets of documents with Border Patrol agents and Texas law enforcement officials. The chat logs show Border Patrol agents and Texas sheriffs deputies trading tips about vehicles’ travel patterns — based on suspicions about little more than someone taking a quick trip to the border region and back. The chats show how thoroughly Texas highways are surveilled by this federal-local partnership and how much detailed information is informally shared. In one exchange a law enforcement official included a photo of someone’s driver’s license and told the group the person, who they identified using an abbreviation for someone in the country illegally, was headed westbound. “Need BP?,” responded a group member whose number was labeled “bp Intel.” “Yes sir,” the official answered, and a Border Patrol agent was en route. Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement shared information about U.S. citizens’ social media profiles and home addresses with each other after stopping them on the road. Chats show Border Patrol was also able to determine whether vehicles were rentals and whether drivers worked for rideshare services. Alek Schott sits for a photo in his car near a route he occasionally takes for work trips Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Stockdale, Texas. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Alek Schott sits for a photo in his car near a route he occasionally takes for work trips Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Stockdale, Texas. (AP Photo/David Goldman) In Schott’s case, Babb testified that federal agents “actually watch travel patterns on the highway” through license plate scans and other surveillance technologies. He added: “I just know that they have a lot of toys over there on the federal side.” After finding nothing in Schott’s car, Babb said “nine times out of 10, this is what happens,” a phrase Schott’s lawyers claimed in court filings shows the sheriff’s department finds nothing suspicious in most of its searches. Babb did not respond to multiple requests for comment from AP. The Bexar County sheriff’s office declined to comment due to pending litigation and referred all questions about the Schott case to the county’s district attorney. The district attorney did not respond to a request for comment. The case is pending in federal court in Texas. Schott said in an interview with the AP: “I didn’t know it was illegal to drive in Texas.” ‘Patterns of life’ and license plates A license plate reader used by U.S. Border Patrol is hidden in a sand crash barrel along the state Highway 80, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Douglas, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) A license plate reader used by U.S. Border Patrol is hidden in a sand crash barrel along the state Highway 80, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Douglas, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Today, the deserts, forests and mountains of the nation’s land borders are dotted with checkpoints and increasingly, surveillance towers, Predator drones, thermal cameras and license plate readers, both covert and overt. Border Patrol’s parent agency got authorization to run a domestic license plate reader program in 2017, according to a Department of Homeland Security policy document. At the time, the agency said that it might use hidden license plate readers ”for a set period of time while CBP is conducting an investigation of an area of interest or smuggling route. Once the investigation is complete, or the illicit activity has stopped in that area, the covert cameras are removed,” the document states. But that’s not how the program has operated in practice, according to interviews, police reports and court documents. License plate readers have become a major — and in some places permanent — fixture of the border region. In a budget request to Congress in fiscal year 2024, CBP said that its Conveyance Monitoring and Predictive Recognition System, or CMPRS, “collects license plate images and matches the processed images against established hot lists to assist … in identifying travel patterns indicative of illegal border related activities.” Several new developer jobs have been posted seeking applicants to help modernize its license plate surveillance system in recent months. Numerous Border Patrol sectors now have special intelligence units that can analyze license plate reader data, and tie commercial license plate readers to its national network, according to documents and interviews. A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle sits along the Rio Grande river across the border from Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, in Laredo, Texas. (AP Photo/David Goldman) A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle sits along the Rio Grande river across the border from Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, in Laredo, Texas. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Border Patrol worked with other law enforcement agencies in Southern California about a decade ago to develop pattern recognition, said a former CBP official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Over time, the agency learned to develop what it calls “patterns of life” of vehicle movements by sifting through the license plate data and determining “abnormal” routes, evaluating if drivers were purposely avoiding official checkpoints. Some cameras can take photos of a vehicle’s plates as well as its driver’s face, the official said. Another former Border Patrol official compared it to a more technologically sophisticated version of what agents used to do in the field — develop hunches based on experience about which vehicles or routes smugglers might use, find a legal basis for the stop like speeding and pull drivers over for questioning. The cameras take pictures of vehicle license plates. Then, the photos are “read” by the system, which automatically detects and distills the images into numbers and letters, tied to a geographic location, former CBP officials said. The AP For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, records reveal

The FBI spied on a private Signal group chat of immigrants’ rights activists who were organizing “courtwatch” efforts in New York City this spring, law enforcement records shared with the Guardian indicate. The FBI, the documents show, gained access to conversations in a “courtwatch” Signal group that helps coordinate volunteer activists who monitor public proceedings at three New York federal immigration courts. The US government has repeatedly been accused of violating immigrants’ due process rights at those courts. A “joint situational information report” from the FBI and the New York police department (NYPD), dated 28 August 2025, quoted from a chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, and also characterized the court watchers as “anarchist violent extremist actors”. The two-page report was distributed to other law enforcement agencies across the US. The records were obtained by Property of the People, a government transparency non-profit, through public records requests. Activist groups have expanded efforts to observe and document courthouse activities in recent months as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has increasingly been detaining immigrants who have shown up to court for routine hearings. An ICE directive issued the day after Donald Trump took office in January established that agents could arrest immigrants at court; the practice had been restricted under the Biden administration due to concerns that court arrests would interfere with “the fair administration of justice”. In immigration courts across the country this year, the US government has repeatedly dismissed immigrants’ cases at their hearings, enabling federal agents to then arrest the immigrants in courthouse hallways, the Guardian previously reported. A recent Associated Press investigation suggested that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has set up “deportation traps” at the courts. A federal officer was filmed pushing a woman to the floor at a New York City courthouse in September, prompting a rare rebuke from the DHS. The FBI’s report from August, prepared by its New York division, does not make clear how the bureau accessed the Signal group. The Signal platform, widely used by activists, is known for its end-to-end encryption; typically, the only way law enforcement can access messages is if they are directly included in the chat, are sent copies from a participant or have access to a member’s unlocked phone. The FBI said the information came from a “sensitive source with excellent access” and introduced the report as a warning about “extremist actors targeting law enforcement officers and federal facilities”. In “late May”, an individual “participated in a debrief session held via a Signal call within the ‘courtwatch’ Signal groupchat”, the FBI wrote, without identifying the individual or the specific group or organizations involved. That person “discussed how to improve future activities near federal facilities in New York City, including 26 Federal Plaza, 201 Varick Street and 290 Broadway”, the report continued, listing the addresses of three immigration courts in Manhattan. “Collecting media of activities was ‘critical information’; media included photos and videos of law enforcement officers including their badges, faces, names, license plates, law enforcement vehicles, and the interior of federal facilities,” the FBI wrote, summarizing the conversations. Discussions in the chat included “instructions on where to go and what to say in order to gain access to federal courtrooms”, with the FBI noting that members of the group were told which floors to visit and to tell officials they were there to observe, with statements like: “I’m due at a 9:30 hearing.” The FBI added: “‘Courtwatch’ is a private/invite only, encrypted Signal application group chat created by the identified [individual]. In private encrypted online chats, the identified [individual] is known to instruct protest participants to use violence against [law enforcement].” The FBI declined to comment in response to a detailed list of questions. The DHS also declined to comment, referring questions to the FBI. ICE did not respond to requests for comment. The memo did not provide any further details about the individual or their alleged past calls for violence and offered no specifics or evidence to explain why the FBI characterized them as “anarchist violent extremists”. The courtwatch efforts have been nonviolent, and the FBI did not respond to an inquiry seeking specific examples of violence and did not answer questions about whether law enforcement had ongoing access to the private group. An NYPD spokesperson said in an email: “This is not an NYPD document. It references a broader counterterrorism investigation into a range of possible criminal activities, including weapons training, violence against law enforcement, property damage and destruction, and discussions about bomb-making. This investigation has been reviewed by an external civilian representative exercising oversight pursuant to court order.” The FBI’s report does not include references to “bomb-making” or any of the other specific claims of criminal activity, and the NYPD declined to comment further. Hearings at immigration court, which is run by the Department of Justice (DoJ), are open to the public and observers do not have to inform the courts in advance of their attendance. It’s unclear whether specific groups were targeted by the Signal surveillance. Volunteers with a range of immigrants’ rights organizations and grassroots groups have been involved in New York immigration court watching, which has become a common practice in cities across the country as DHS arrests have escalated. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Headlines US Free newsletter Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning Enter your email address Marketing preferences Get updates about our journalism and ways to support and enjoy our work. Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller, was arrested by ICE in June inside an immigration courthouse while accompanying an immigrant New Yorker. The former mayoral candidate, who has regularly participated in court watching, condemned the FBI’s report in a statement, saying the “FBI surveillance tactic is ripped straight out of the J Edgar Hoover playbook”, referring to the longtime former FBI director known for his spying and attacks on activists. “Observing immigration court hearings is a legal and non-violent act, unlike the ICE abductions we have witnessed regularly for months outside of the courtrooms,” Lander said. “The mission of courtwatch is to provide transparency and ensure people are not disappeared without due process – surveillance and intimidation by Trump’s corrupted Justice Department won’t stop us from showing up to protect our neighbors and the rule of law.” “Basic civic participation is not a terrorist threat,” added Dr Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, in a statement. “The FBI treating it like one is yet another example of the Trump regime’s profound contempt for even the most rudimentary of democratic freedoms.” A young man looks to the side as masked agents surround him One day inside the deportation machine at a federal immigration court in New York Read more Natalie Baldassarre, a DoJ spokesperson, did not respond to questions about the FBI surveillance, but said in a statement: “After four years of the Biden administration forcing immigration courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of thousands of aliens, this Department of Justice is restoring integrity to our courts and will continue to enforce federal immigration law to protect national security and public safety.” Spencer Reynolds, a civil liberties advocate and former senior intelligence counsel with the DHS, said the FBI report was part of a pattern of the US government criminalizing free speech activities. He noted Tom Homan, the White House border czar, stating earlier this year that “know your rights” trainings could be considered impeding law enforcement; the DHS arresting people filming immigration agents; and Trump signing an executive order designating “antifa”, the decentralized antifascist movement, a “domestic terrorist organization”, raising fears of a broad crackdown on leftist activism. “The US government is turning these powerful national security agencies towards critics and people who are standing up for the rights of immigrants, and while it’s so shocking to see something like this, it’s not surprising,” said Reynolds, who reviewed the FBI document for the Guardian. “These activities, and public access to our courts, are lawful and protected by our rights in the US constitution, yet routinely we’re seeing federal officials portray efforts to obtain basic accountability as threats.” FBI surveillance of this nature is not subject to significant oversight and there are limited guardrails to prevent abuses of people’s rights, Reynolds added. Reynolds likened the FBI surveillance to the bureau’s past efforts to infiltrate and disrupt the civil rights movement in the 1960s and spy on Muslim communities after 9/11. Undercover operations, he noted, can lead to conflicts among activists and increasing distrust: “There is a significant risk of chilling and undermining these sorts of private discussion environments.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

‘My poll numbers just went down’: Trump defends skilled immigration, breaking with MAGA base

President Donald Trump has a message for his MAGA base on immigration. And he knows they don’t want to hear it. The president on Wednesday again offered a defense of visas for high-skilled workers, arguing that Americans don’t have the knowhow to fill certain jobs. He pointed to the multi-billion dollar expansion of chip production in Arizona, saying the company — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — will bring in thousands of workers, and that he will “welcome those people.” 00:02 02:00 Read More “I love my conservative friends. I love MAGA,” Trump said during remarks at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum at The Kennedy Center. “But this is MAGA, and those people are going to teach our people how to make computer chips, and in a short period of time, our people are going to be doing great.” The remarks represent Trump’s most pointed defense of his immigration positions to date, and show the president is aware he has work to do to bring along the hawks in his party. Nearly one year since his return to the White House, Trump’s insistence that legal immigration is not only tolerable but an economic necessity continues to roil hardliners on the right, who are at odds with the business and tech interests that Trump has long aligned himself with. “The people who are against us are really, really smart,” Trump said. “They’re unbelievable patriots, but they just don’t understand — our people have to be taught.” He added that companies that invest big money to create plants here need to “bring a lot of their people from their country to get that plant open, operating and working. I’m sorry. So my poll numbers just went down, but with smart people, they’ve gone way up.” Trump’s statement is unlikely to quell the MAGA anger, which has bubbled up every few months since the president was elected. Many saw in the president someone who would fight to curtail nearly all immigration, sparked by concerns over job losses or, more controversially, racially tinged fears about Americans being replaced by foreigners. Trump reignited the debate earlier this month when he said on Fox News that Americans don’t have “certain talents” to fill jobs, in response to Laura Ingraham, who had pushed him on his stance on visas for high-skilled workers, known as H-1Bs. And even as the White House and much of the Trump base was consumed with the vote to release the Epstein files this week, frustration among key Trump allies about the president’s comments simmered beneath the surface. With little hope that Congress can reach a solution on immigration, the president is in a quagmire of his own making. He is caught between those within his base and administration who want to overhaul the employment visa system and others who argue that the economy is dependent on low- and high-skilled immigrant labor, and that the country’s policies must reflect that reality. “You’ve got things like H-1Bs taking away jobs from Americans, that’s huge,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told POLITICO last week. She added that it’s a top issue for her constituents. Some Trump allies argue that the outrage is misplaced and point to the president’s September decision to charge a $100,000 fee for new applicants to receive a visa through the H1-B program, which allows workers such as engineers and computer programmers to temporarily work in the United States. The move was designed to reduce the number of visas used by U.S. companies. The administration earlier this month also announced new probes into H-1B abuse. The White House has argued that Trump has done more than past presidents to prioritize American workers by tightening immigration laws, including by issuing new guidance to ensure unauthorized immigrants are not allowed access to federal workforce development resources and grants and changes to the U.S. citizenship test. “Under the President’s bold leadership, all employment gains have gone exclusively to American-born workers; critical and long-overdue reforms are being made to the H-1B visa process; America’s manufacturing industry is being reshored through powerful tariffs and trade deals; and illegal immigrants are no longer stealing taxpayer-funded benefits,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. Trump’s comments on Wednesday aren’t the only time he’s unveiled a soft spot in his otherwise hardline immigration stance. He spurred MAGA blowback in June, when he promised a solution for farmers who rely on undocumented labor, which immigration hawks slammed as a slippery slope. And after vowing to aggressively revoke Chinese student visas earlier this year, the president reversed course, announcing he would allow 600,000 Chinese students to attend U.S. universities. Trump’s Kennedy Center comments are at odds with immigration hawks and senior policymakers in his administration who insist the program needs to be overhauled. “If you reform ‘x,’ but keep ‘y’ part of the system, it won’t matter either way,” said Kevin Lynn, a fellow at the right-leaning Institute for Sound Public Policy think tank in Washington who leads an effort advocating on behalf of U.S. tech workers. “The H1-B visa system is not being abused, it’s working exactly as designed to to displace American workers and prevent recourse.” It also appears that Trump’s message is at odds with Vice President JD Vance who, in a separate interview with Fox News last week, said that the U.S. should use technology to “empower the blue-collar workers rather than replace them with foreign labor.” Trump’s break with his base reflects his desire to increase investments in the tech and manufacturing sectors, which the president does not believe would be possible — in the short term — without foreign workers. Watch: The Conversation Play Video34:26 Seth Moulton on his Senate bid, Venezuela and the Epstein files | The Conversation The president also has close ties to the tech industry, a top user of the H-1B program. During the last fiscal year, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google relied most on H-1B visas. Those companies have contributed handsomely to Trump efforts including his inaugural fund and the $300 million ballroom that will replace the White House East Wing. “You saw the list … they’re all on there, and they all want their H-1B workers,” said a person close to the administration, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “So he’s hearing about this from all of those folks.” Trump’s defense of foreign workers has some fearing that it will kill the already slim chance for Congress to pass immigration reform. Still, some lawmakers have moved ahead with legislation to overhaul a system they say is increasingly harming American college graduates. “I tend to be on the skeptical side of that program,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told POLITICO, adding that the president’s $100,000 fee for H-1B applicants is a “good idea.” “In general we want to do everything we can to promote American workers and get as many Americans into jobs, get wages up,” he said. “I tend to view all of our visa policies through that lens.” Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced a bill in September which would restructure the lottery system for H1-B visas and direct DHS to eliminate the Optional Practical Training program, which advocates say has allowed companies to hire foreign-born workers without having to pay the government taxes for their work under the auspices of continuing their education. Other H-1B legislation is expected in the coming weeks and months, though it’s unclear if there will be an appetite without buy-in from the White House. “There’s a political imperative after the GOP got their heads handed to them,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies think tank in Washington, which favors restrictions on legal immigration. “There’s a real election in a year, and lots of messaging from Labor and DHS about protecting American workers. But action is needed.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump targets legal immigrants in proposed green card policy

The Department of Homeland Security is considering a new policy that would impact immigrants in the United States who came from countries subject to President Donald Trump's June travel ban. The New York Times reported Friday a draft of the new policy says U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would consider "country-specific factors" in green card, parole and asylum applications. Coming from a country on the travel ban list — mostly those in Africa and the Middle East — would be considered "significant negative factors" on immigration requests. Advertisement Become a KPBS sponsor The policy would apply to immigrants already living in the U.S. after passing security and background checks, including the tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the country after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021. Most of the Afghans who resettled in the U.S. are here under humanitarian parole or temporary status and are navigating an immigration system that does not provide any path to permanent legal status for them. Shawn VanDiver, president and co-founder of San Diego-based nonprofit #AfghanEvac, said the policy amounts a travel ban for people already in the country. "What we're worried about is that USCIS will use this to force people who could be out of limbo into a permanent limbo or even worse — deportation from our country — after having made it here," VanDiver said. VanDiver was in Washington, D.C. Monday visiting lawmakers with other advocates to rally opposition to the change. Advertisement Become a KPBS sponsor There are 19 countries on the list. Paratroopers assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, based out of Fort Bragg, N.C., facilitate the safe evacuation of U.S. citizens, Special Immigrant Visa applicants, and other at-risk Afghans out of Afghanistan as quickly and safely as possible from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Aug. 22, 2021. Border & Immigration More than 200,000 Afghan allies without options as resettlement ends Listen • 4:58 "These are folks who are fleeing persecution," VanDiver said. "Some of them came here as (asylum-seekers). Some of them came here as refugees, some are wartime allies that were flown here by the U.S. government and told, 'hang out for a second, you'll get through immigration process and you'll have your shot at the American dream.'" It's the latest in a series of administration decisions that ended almost all Afghan resettlement in the U.S. On Trump's first day back in office January, he ordered a halt to all refugee travel. This included thousands of Afghans and their families screened and approved by the State Department to relocate to the United States, including thousands still housed at U.S.-run sites in third-party countries, such as one in Doha, Qatar. The January suspension of refugee resettlement was followed by a travel and VISA ban that included Afghanistan and the end of Temporary Protected Status for Afghans. In July the U.S. State Department closed the office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, or CARE. CARE office staff were reportedly among the 1,300 department workers laid off this summer. Not all refugees are being treated equally. Last month the administration announced it would restrict the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 7,500 and that white South Africans would be given priority. Under President Joe Biden about 100,000 refugees were admitted per year. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

New international student enrollment fell sharply this year amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown

International student enrollment rates at American colleges and universities fell sharply this year, driven by visa application issues as prospective students are caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. New international student enrollment in U.S. institutions declined by 17% in fall 2025, the largest nonpandemic decline in the last 11 years, according to new data released Monday by the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit that works to encourage foreign study. This figure, from a preliminary report covering a portion of the institutions, comes on the heels of a 7% drop in new international enrollees in the 2024-25 academic year. More than half of the 825 U.S. higher education institutions surveyed in the fall 2025 snapshot reported a decrease in new international enrollment, according to the IIE’s Open Doors report. ADVERTISING “The U.S. is no longer the central place that students aspire to come to,” said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, a nonprofit group. Aw attributed the decline to difficulties in obtaining a U.S. visa, saying the issues have made the U.S. “less competitive” on the global stage. According to the IIE report, 96% of higher education institutions cited visa application concerns as an obstacle for enrollment. Recommended Data Graphics Track President Trump's approval rating Government Shutdown What happened and what’s happening on key dates during the government shutdown Visa issues preceded President Donald Trump, as Aw attributed some of the 7% dip in the 2024-25 academic year to high visa denial rates from places like India and sub-Sarahan Africa. However, the Trump administration paused new student visa interviews in May, creating long application backlogs. This enrollment decline carries deep economic consequences, with a NAFSA report, also published Monday, estimating a $1.1 billion loss to the U.S. economy due to fewer international students. According to NAFSA, international students contributed nearly $43 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 355,000 jobs in the 2024-25 academic year. International students not only contribute through tuition fees, but also lift local economies through buying services and products, renting apartments, purchasing health insurance, and bringing international visitors, Aw said. NAFSA estimates that for every three international students, one U.S. job is created or supported. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Naturalized US citizens thought they were safe. Trump’s immigration policies are shaking that belief

NEW YORK (AP) — When he first came to the United States after escaping civil war in Sierra Leone and spending almost a decade in a refugee camp, Dauda Sesay had no idea he could become a citizen. But he was told that if he followed the rules and stayed out of trouble, after some years he could apply. As a U.S. citizen, he would have protection. It’s what made him decide to apply: the premise — and the promise — that when he became a naturalized American citizen, it would create a bond between him and his new home. He would have rights as well as responsibilities, like voting, that, as he was making a commitment to the country, the country was making one to him. “When I raised my hand and took the oath of allegiance, I did believe that moment the promise that I belonged,” said Sesay, 48, who first arrived in Louisiana more than 15 years ago and now works as an advocate for refugees and their integration into American society. But in recent months, as President Donald Trump reshapes immigration and the country’s relationship with immigrants, that belief has been shaken for Sesay and other naturalized citizens. There’s now fear that the push to drastically increase deportations and shift who can claim America as home, through things like trying to end birthright citizenship, is having a ripple effect. Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel. Follow on WhatsApp What they thought was the bedrock protection of naturalization now feels more like quicksand. Illinois State Police stand guard as people including members of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) gather outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File) Illinois State Police stand guard as people including members of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) gather outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File) What happens if they leave? Some are worried that if they leave the country, they will have difficulties when trying to return, fearful because of accounts of naturalized citizens being questioned or detained by U.S. border agents. They wonder: Do they need to lock down their phones to protect their privacy? Others are hesitant about moving around within the country, after stories like that of a U.S. citizen accused of being here illegally and detained even after his mother produced his birth certificate. There has been no evidence of an uptick in denaturalizations so far in this Trump administration. Yet that hasn’t assuaged some. Sesay said he doesn’t travel domestically anymore without his passport, despite having a REAL ID with its federally mandated, stringent identity requirements. Immigration enforcement roundups, often conducted by masked, unidentifiable federal agents in places including Chicago and New York City, have at times included American citizens in their dragnets. One U.S. citizen who says he was detained by immigration agents twice has filed a federal lawsuit. Adding to the worries, the Justice Department issued a memo this summer saying it would ramp up efforts to denaturalize immigrants who’ve committed crimes or are deemed to present a national security risk. At one point during the summer, Trump threatened the citizenship of Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, who naturalized as a young adult. The atmosphere makes some worried to speak about it publicly, for fear of drawing negative attention to themselves. Requests for comment through several community organizations and other connections found no takers willing to go on the record other than Sesay. In New Mexico, state Sen. Cindy Nava says she’s familiar with the fear, having grown up undocumented before getting DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that protected people brought to the U.S. as children from being deported — and gaining citizenship through her marriage. But she hadn’t expected to see so much fear among naturalized citizens. “I had never seen those folks be afraid ... now the folks that I know that were not afraid before, now they are uncertain of what their status holds in terms of a safety net for them,” Nava said. What citizenship has meant, and who was included, has expanded and contracted over the course of American history, said Stephen Kantrowitz, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said while the word “citizen” is in the original Constitution, it is not defined. “When the Constitution is written, nobody knows what citizenship means,” he said. “It’s a term of art, it comes out of the French revolutionary tradition. It sort of suggests an equality of the members of a political community, and it has some implications for the right to be a member of that political community. But it is ... so undefined.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator after he exited an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File) Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator after he exited an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File) American immigration and its obstacles The first naturalization law passed in 1790 by the new country’s Congress said citizenship was for any “free white person” of good character. Those of African descent or nativity were added as a specific category to federal immigration law after the ravages of the Civil War in the 19th century, which was also when the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution to establish birthright citizenship. In the last years of the 19th century and into the 20th century, laws were put on the books limiting immigration and, by extension, naturalization. The Immigration Act of 1924 effectively barred people from Asia because they were ineligible for naturalization, being neither white nor Black. That didn’t change until 1952, when an immigration law removed racial restrictions on who could be naturalized. The 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act replaced the previous immigration system with one that portioned out visas equally among nations. American history also includes times when those who had citizenship had it taken away, like after the 1923 Supreme Court ruling in U.S. vs. Bhagat Singh Thind. That ruling said that Indians couldn’t be naturalized because they did not qualify as white and led to several dozen denaturalizations. At other times, it was ignored, as in World War II, when Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps. “Political power will sometimes simply decide that a group of people, or a person or a family isn’t entitled to citizenship,” Kantrowitz said. In this moment, Sesay says, it feels like betrayal. “The United States of America — that’s what I took that oath of allegiance, that’s what I make commitment to,” Sesay said. “Now, inside my home country, and I’m seeing a shift. ... Honestly, that is not the America I believe in when I put my hand over my heart.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

'We need to get out of here': Trump's immigration crackdown is quietly reshaping where immigrants live in America

A woman named "E" was at a clothing store in Tampa, Florida with her daughter when she realized it was time to leave. It was her daughter's 15th birthday, and she wanted to buy her an outfit. She says she felt the salespeople giving them looks. "Real ugly looks," she says. "They could call immigration," she recalls telling her daughter. "You're an American citizen, but you're also Hispanic. We need to get out of here." They left the store, she says, with the feeling that it was also time to leave the state. The question this family is grappling with is: where to? Sponsor Message Under the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, many are deciding to hide in place, while others are self-deporting. But there's also anecdotal evidence that people are relocating, from cities with aggressive immigration enforcement to places with fewer raids, where they feel safer. A pink swing hangs from a tree, Saturday, July 19, 2025, in Tampa. (Lexi Parra for NPR) A pink swing hangs from a tree, Saturday, July 19, 2025, in Tampa. Lexi Parra for NPR E. asked that we only use her first initial, because she and her husband are both undocumented. She says she'd like to go back to Guatemala as soon as possible. Her daughter, who recently started high school, wants to stay in Florida. So does her husband, who feels that after some 20 years living in the U.S., this is home. But under the leadership of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has embarked on one of the strictest immigration crackdowns in the nation, vowing to lead the way in President Trump's campaign. Her husband's workplace - a construction site - was recently raided. He just happened to be out that day. And the family knows multiple people who've been deported, including their own church pastor. For now, the family has decided to leave Florida for a small town in Michigan. A neighbor friend, also an immigrant, just moved there. "She called me recently," E. says, and she told me, 'why don't you come up here? Things are quiet here. You don't hear about raids. And I can find you a job.'" A factory plant sits at dusk, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, in Fremont, Nebraska. Immigrant workers, primarily from El Salvador and Guatemala, have been moving to Nebraska, where there are multiple factories and jobs. State-wide, Nebraska is experiencing labor shortages, publicly declaring themselves as welcoming to immigrants. The state voted in its majority for President Trump, who campaigned on plans of mass deportation. (Lexi Parra for NPR) A factory plant sits at dusk, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, in Fremont, Nebraska. Immigrant workers, primarily from El Salvador and Guatemala, have been moving to Nebraska, where there are multiple factories and jobs. State-wide, Nebraska is experiencing labor shortages, publicly declaring themselves as welcoming to immigrants. The state voted in its majority for President Trump, who campaigned on plans of mass deportation. (Lexi Parra for NPR) Lexi Parra for NPR It's hard to track the movement of undocumented immigrants throughout the U.S. There are no exact numbers. Demographer Matt Brooks at Florida State University studies these population flows, and says we've been seeing clear trends since at least the 1980s. "There's definitely a pattern and on the aggregate these patterns make a lot of sense." Sponsor Message Brooks says immigration to the U.S. is often a multi-step process: migrants tend to first land in big cities, but in time they make a second move, increasingly to the South or the Midwest, seeking out jobs in agriculture or manufacturing. And, he says, sometimes there's a third move: away from immigration enforcement to cities and towns that seem safer. Brooks points to Mississippi as an example. In 2019, there was a massive immigration raid at multiple food-processing plants near Jackson. "We know that immigrants have been leaving Mississippi ever since," he says. Following that raid, he points out "the flow of immigrants out of MIssissippi is more than double the flow in." The Trump administration hasn't hit its first anniversary yet, but the immigration crackdown is already having widespread effects. The Department of Homeland Security claims 1.6 million immigrants have left the country voluntarily, what the administration calls self-deportation. There's also evidence of something else: internal migration, as families flee enforcement zones for safer ground. For a Salvadoran man in Omaha, Nebraska who asked to be referred to by his first initial, R., relocating to another state was a panicked, last minute decision. Over the summer, a major raid at a meat packing plant sent shockwaves throughout immigrant communities in Nebraska. The morning after, R. says he sat in the parking lot of his factory, debating whether to go into work or leave the state altogether. "I feel that I'm in between a rock and a hard place," he told NPR.. He's asked for his full name to be withheld because he is worried for his safety, as he is seeking asylum in the U.S. from El Salvador's authoritarian government. He says to be sent back could be a death sentence. R poses for a portrait behind a restaurant, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, in Fremont, Nebraska. He left El Salvador earlier this year and crossed to the U.S. through the CBP One app, now working at a factory in town. His wife and daughter are still in El Salvador. (Lexi Parra for NPR) R poses for a portrait behind a restaurant, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, in Fremont, Nebraska. He left El Salvador earlier this year and crossed to the U.S. through the CBP One app, now working at a factory in town. His wife and daughter are still in El Salvador. Lexi Parra for NPR A few days later, R. was gone. He drove almost non-stop from Nebraska to North Carolina—21 hours behind the wheel, fueled by coffee and electrolytes. The destination: a small city his friend said was safe, where immigration raids were rare or non-existent. When he got there, he went straight to work at his new roofing gig. That was five months ago. NPR recently checked in with him. "It's been quiet here," he says. He wouldn't say he's happy, but there are fewer Hispanics, "so the town just isn't a big immigration enforcement target." At least for now. He's hoping it stays that way. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.