‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks

When Karen Newton left home in late July 2025, she knew that international travellers were being locked up in immigration detention centres in the US. “I was aware,” she nods. “But I never thought it would have any impact on my holiday.” Karen, 65, had a British passport and a tourist visa. She hadn’t been abroad for eight years, and was keen for some guaranteed sun. “I really just wanted to get away from the house.” She and her husband, Bill, 66, had an ambitious itinerary that would take them through California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and then on to Canada over two months. Las Vegas wasn’t to Karen’s taste: “Way too commercialised.” She much preferred Yellowstone, where they saw Old Faithful, the famous geyser, as it shot boiling water into the air, and got up close with some extraordinary wildlife. “There was a bison right next to the car. Another time, a wolf walked past.” Her eyes sparkle at the memory. “It was just amazing.” The dream holiday ended abruptly on Friday 26 September, as Karen and Bill were trying to leave the US. When they crossed the border, Canadian officials told them they didn’t have the correct paperwork to bring the car with them. They were turned back to Montana on the American side – and to US border control officials. Bill’s US visa had expired; Karen’s had not. “I worried then,” she says. “I was worried for him. I thought, well, at least I am here to support him.” She didn’t know it at the time, but it was the beginning of an ordeal that would see Karen handcuffed, shackled and sleeping on the floor of a locked cell, before being driven for 12 hours through the night to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre. Karen was incarcerated for a total of six weeks – even though she had been travelling with a valid visa. Karen has no criminal record. She is a grandmother who spent eight years working as an admin assistant at a primary school before her retirement. “I don’t even have parking tickets in the background anywhere,” she says. “I am not a dangerous criminal. I didn’t enter the country illegally and I had everything I needed to be there.” So why did ICE detain her, and keep her locked up for so long? A possible answer began to emerge over the weeks she was incarcerated. As Karen got to know the guards at the Northwest ICE Processing Center where she was held, she kept hearing the same thing from them: that ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they detain someone. “Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that,” Karen says. It’s no secret that the Trump administration has been pouring money into ICE. Its annual budget – $6bn a decade ago – is now $85bn; ICE is now the highest -funded law enforcement agency in the US. Since last August, new recruits can expect to receive a signing-on bonus of up to $50,000. Karen’s experience has left her convinced that ICE agents are being given even more incentives – to arrest and detain anyone they possibly can, even blameless tourists who have all the paperwork they need to be in the US. Within days of Donald Trump’s second inauguration on 20 January 2025, his administration ordered ICE officials to detain more people, with new quotas that would increase the total number of arrests from a few hundred to 1,200-1,500 a day. Reports immediately began to emerge of international travellers being detained by ICE officers. Illustration of a tourist with a backpack on the outstretched hand of a giant Donald Trump and being shouted at by him View image in fullscreen Illustration: Edel Rodriguez/The Guardian On 25 January, German tourist Jessica Brösche was stopped by ICE and held for 45 days (including eight days of solitary confinement). Early in February, Germans Lucas Sielaff and Fabian Schmidt were also detained. In late February, the British backpacker Rebecca Burke was incarcerated for 19 days in the same ICE facility where Karen would later spend six weeks. (Like Karen, Burke had been trying to leave the US when she was detained.) Canadian actor Jasmine Mooney was held in an ICE detention centre for two weeks in March. In July, New Zealander Sarah Shaw and her six-year-old son were detained for three weeks. These stories may be the tip of the iceberg: we only know about them because they involve people who were prepared to talk publicly about being seized by ICE. They are generally young people who were held on suspicion of being in the US to work without the correct visa. That’s why, when Karen heard some of their stories before she left the UK, she assumed their experiences had no relevance to her: she was a retired person taking a holiday. In the end, Karen was detained for longer than almost every one of them. I meet Karen in her home, on a quiet road in Hertfordshire. She sits in the corner of her sofa, next to a magnifying light and a trolley that holds a sewing box, thread and everything else she needs for her cross stitch. The walls of her home are adorned with frames containing her embroidery. The first thing you see when you come through the front door is a framed 9,000-piece puzzle of the Tower of Babel that took her two years to finish. “I don’t like staying away from home for a long time,” she tells me, over tea and Jammie Dodgers biscuits. It was scary. You have no way of knowing what’s going to happen. It got darker and darker When they were turned back from Canada, and US border control agents saw that Bill’s visa had expired, Karen fully expected to be allowed to return home. The Newtons immediately offered to pay for their flights – they had funds available to cover the tickets – but the officials “weren’t interested”, she says. Instead, they were taken into an office and made to wait there, from 10.30am until nightfall. At first, Karen was bewildered. “There was no reason to hold me,” she says. “Bill’s an adult. Why am I held responsible for him?” When she asked why she was being detained, an officer told her his supervisor had instructed him to hold her. The hours ticked by. “It was scary. You have no way of knowing what’s going to happen. It got darker and darker. And then other agents turned up with all these chains and handcuffs.” Karen and Bill were shackled at the wrists , waist and ankles and bundled into a vehicle. Karen doesn’t know how long they were on the road for. “It just seemed to be a never-ending day.” They arrived at Sweetgrass border patrol station in Montana in the middle of the night, and were held there for three days, sharing a cell without beds; they slept on mats on the floor, under foil blankets. “I was very nervous and frightened the whole time. And I was chilled to the bone – I couldn’t warm up.” They were interviewed separately. Karen was not offered a lawyer; she wasn’t entitled to one, she says, because she had been detained, rather than arrested. She didn’t think she needed one, anyway. “I just thought, ‘When they listen to me, when they come to their senses, they are going to let me go.’ I thought they might escort me to the airport and put us on a plane – hopefully both of us. But that didn’t happen.” Bill had been working in the US with a valid work permit, but did not have a green card – fed up with the appeals process, he had decided to leave and retire back in the UK. Karen was told that she was “guilty by association”, and that she had broken the terms of her valid B2 tourist visa by helping her husband pack for the trip. “It just went from crazy to ridiculous. It felt like they just wanted an excuse to detain me.” There was a way to make things easier, the agent said: Bill and Karen could volunteer for self-removal. Last May, the White House announced Project Homecoming, a scheme whereby so-called “illegal aliens” could opt for self-deportation. Anyone who agrees to it gets their flight home paid by the US government, as well as an “exit bonus” payment of $1,000. (The Department of Homeland Security announced on 21 January 2026 that the bonus had increased to $2,600 to “celebrate one year of Trump”.) Project Homecoming was funded by repurposing $250m previously intended to be spent on refugee aid. It’s called a detention facility, but it’s really a prison. Locking doors, guards everywhere, cells, everything clamped to the floor “He said, ‘If you volunteer for self-removal – and because of the special relationship the US has with the UK – it will be over very quickly,’” Karen continues. They’d have to sign a document that would mean they would be banned from the US for up to 10 years, and waive their right to go before a judge. If they chose not to, and waited for their day in court, they would be prolonging the ordeal, she was told. “I said to him, ‘I’m on holiday. I want to go home.’ I would have taken the shortest route, whatever it was, which he said was volunteering for self-removal.” So they signed. Karen had no way of knowing that she was only on day three of what would turn out to be 42 days of detention. The Newtons were transferred in shackles once again. A border control SUV drove them from Sweetgrass to Spokane, in Washington state, where they waited for an hour before being put on what Karen calls a “prison van”, and taken to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. “It’s called a detention facility, but it’s really a prison,” she says. “Locking doors, guards everywhere, cells, everything clamped to the floor – it’s how I imagine a prison to be. Prison would actually be better, because if you’re in prison, you get a sentence – they tell you how long you are going to be there.” Karen was given a grey sweatshirt and jogging bottoms to wear and issued with an ID card and wristband. She didn’t allow herself to be afraid. “I didn’t want to give it headspace. I was just in disbelief, incredulous that this could happen.” The Northwest ICE Processing Center, Tacoma, Washington. It has been photographed through a wire fence View image in fullscreen The Northwest ICE Processing Center, Tacoma, Washington. Photograph: Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images In the early hours of the morning, she was separated from Bill, and taken to the women’s unit: a vast room filled with bunk beds and metal picnic tables. The guard on duty asked if she was able to climb a ladder to get on a top bunk; Karen said she wasn’t. “I can’t do heights. And I am in my 60s – it’s not something I wanted to do.” The guard told Karen sharply that she was fed up with “this crap”. She led Karen to a cell on the mezzanine level, where an inmate was occupying the lower bunk. “The guard said, ‘Your choice is either the top bunk or the floor.’ So I set myself up on the floor. That’s where I stayed for the next month.” Karen had pain in her hips and back from sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor, and constipation because she was afraid of going to the toilet in a place where anyone could watch her. Her cellmate, Maria, spoke no English, but they got along; Maria was an older woman, and Karen felt safe with her. After a month, Maria asked to be transferred to a cell on the ground floor because her knees couldn’t handle the stairs up to the mezzanine level, so Karen eventually took over the bottom bunk. Time passed slowly at Tacoma, but Karen says she lost all sense of it. From her cell, she was unable to see the one small clock affixed above the guard’s desk in the main hall. The unit had no windows, and the lights were always on, so it was difficult to tell night from day. Once, Karen woke up and went to make herself a cup of tea. She sat at one of the metal tables to drink it, and one of the other inmates asked her if she was having trouble sleeping. “I said, ‘I slept all right.’ And she smiled and said, ‘What time of day do you think it is?’” The clock on the wall said 11.30; Karen had assumed it was 11.30 in the morning. “I thought I’d had a night’s sleep, and I hadn’t. I must’ve been in bed for three hours.” skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Inside Saturday Free weekly newsletter The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. 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 Karen tried to keep herself busy with the jigsaw puzzles and books that were left out for inmates. She kept to herself much of the time; most of the other women didn’t speak English anyway. But those who did shared traumatic stories of being separated from their young children, and agonising details of delays in their legal fight to stay in the country. Some had been living in the US for decades, building lives and families. A few of them had been detained for more than a year. “People think it is just criminals that are being deported, but they’re just a lot of people who went there for a better life. Is that really criminal?” While the Northwest Detention Center is an ICE facility, it is run by GEO, a private company. Aside from her experience with the first guard who took her to her cell, Karen says the staff were “nice enough” to her. None of them could understand why she was there. “One of them said to me, ‘You need to find a pro bono lawyer and sue.’” Another guard turned out to be British. “I had several conversations with her. She said, ‘I can understand them holding your husband, but I don’t understand why they would hold you.’” It was during these conversations that Karen was told repeatedly that ICE agents are paid a bonus every time they detain someone. “I was told this by multiple sources,” she says. “There is all the incentive in the world to find a reason – any reason – not to let someone go.” When I contacted ICE to ask if they could confirm or deny whether individual officers are paid a bonus for every person they detain, a spokesperson said, “Bonuses for ICE officers are not based on arrest or detention numbers. Pay and bonuses for ICE officers are administered in accordance with office of personnel management policy. ICE officers risk their own safety day in and day out because they took an oath to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, not to make large sums of money.” After a couple of weeks, one of the guards asked Karen when she was going to see her husband. Until then, she’d had no idea that she was entitled to. The guard told her she needed to apply for permission. At first her application was turned down, but she eventually did get to see Bill. “It was bittersweet. It was nice to see he was OK, but in a way, I wished …” Her voice trails off. “It brought it home more. It was a slap in the face. You’re in a prison, and now you’re going to have to go back to your unit.” Detainees exercise in an outdoor recreation area at the Northwest ICE Processing Center. View image in fullscreen Detainees exercise in an outdoor recreation area at the Northwest ICE Processing Center. Photograph: David Ryder/Getty Images Karen had messaged their son, Scott, when they were initially held at the border. “We have been unavoidably detained,” she’d texted, “I will let you know when I am home.” But her phone was soon taken away from her. It was several weeks before she rang him from the detention centre. Why did it take her so long? “It was humiliating.” Her eyes fall. “I was ashamed to be locked up.” When she finally called Scott, he was angry with her for not having rung sooner: he had been worrying ever since the first day. He had already contacted the UK Foreign Office, who eventually told him there was no way his parents could be released while the federal government shutdown was ongoing; it ran from 1 October to 12 November. Karen knew this couldn’t be true: she saw people leaving the detention centre every day. (In fact, ICE deported 56,000 people during the 43 days of shutdown, when most government business was halted.) Both Karen and Bill separately tried to contact the British consulate. After weeks of effort, Karen managed to speak to someone, but the consular official told her they couldn’t interfere. “She said she’d look into it, but we never heard from her again. They were absolutely terrible.” Every week, ICE agents would visit the unit to update inmates about any developments on their cases, and tell them when they were going to leave the detention centre. “Their stock answer was ‘two weeks’ or ‘soon’.” One week, ICE didn’t turn up at all. Karen began to feel hopeless. “I was talking to others and thinking, ‘Maybe I should have gone the route of asking to see a judge?’ I was thinking, ‘Did I do the wrong thing?’” And then, out of the blue on Thursday 6 November, when the guards were doing a headcount and the inmates were supposed to be locked in their cells, Karen’s door suddenly opened. “I thought it was some sort of glitch.” She peeked out of her cell and saw a guard, who informed her that she was being released, and handed her a bag for her to return her used bedding. She was taken away from the unit to the “intake” area of the detention centre, and given her own clothes to change into. It was here that she was told Bill was being released, too. “Such a huge relief.” But Karen would spend several more hours locked in a cell without him before they were finally reunited, handcuffed and shackled once more, shuffled outside, and driven to Seattle-Tacoma international airport. You only really appreciate your freedom when you’ve had it taken away Karen arrived home in Hertfordshire to find her car battery flat and her houseplants dead. After failing to pay two months’ worth of bills, her credit score has been affected. There were mounds of post, and six weeks’ worth of emails that she says she is still trying to catch up on. Their luggage, which was confiscated when they were detained, has never been returned. “Every so often I think of something else that was in my suitcase that I’m never going to see again.” She’s made a claim on her travel insurance to see if they are prepared to cover the cost of the possessions seized at the border. But Karen has become grateful for little things. “It was just lovely to be in my own bed,” she sighs. “One day Bill commented on the poor weather, and I said, ‘Yes, but you know what? We can go out in it if we want to. We’re free.’ You only really appreciate your freedom when you’ve had it taken away.” Trump entered his second term in office promising a crackdown on unauthorised migrants. Ever since, tourists have suffered – and so has America’s tourism industry. The US saw 4.5m fewer visits from international travellers in 2025; visits from Canada were down by more than 22%, from Germany by more than 11% and from the UK by 15%. The World Travel & Tourism Council, the global body representing the industry, estimated that the decline in international tourism last year cost the US $12.5bn in lost revenue. It is expensive to detain people, keep them locked up for weeks on end, encourage them to declare themselves illegal aliens in exchange for a cash bonus and cover the costs of their transportation home. (Karen received the $1,000 bonus but, like others who have opted for self-deportation, Bill never received the promised payment.) Karen is still bewildered that they were prepared to spend so much money incarcerating her. “I think it’s Trump insisting they generate figures on how many people they are detaining. I can’t think of any other reason. ICE just do it because they can, and because they are told to round up people and deport them. It seems to have gone down the slippery slope of just kicking everyone out who isn’t American – and now even Americans are getting in trouble. It’s really scary.” British backpacker Rebecca Burke. View image in fullscreen British backpacker Rebecca Burke. Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Guardian Rebecca Burke, the British graphic artist detained by ICE when she was backpacking through North America, was released after 19 days once her story became international news. Karen may have been released sooner had she shared her story earlier. But when she was in the detention centre, she had balked at the idea. “I was mortified at the thought,” she says. “It was only afterwards I thought, ‘No, I do need to speak up. How many other people like me have been detained and not said a word? If we don’t speak up, nobody is going to know, and it will happen to somebody else.’” She has a message for other tourists considering a trip to America: “Don’t go – not with Trump in charge. It’s totally out of control over there. There’s no accountability. They don’t seem to need a reason for detaining you.” But this year is set to be a big one for international travel to the US. As one of the hosts of the 2026 Fifa World Cup, the country is expecting to see tourists from across the globe. “I worry about young people going out there for the World Cup – I really do. I imagine a group of young guys getting drunk at a game, getting arrested. I could see them easily ending up in the same place as I did. They’d find some reason to detain them. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

No-bond detentions spark ‘unprecedented’ flood of legal challenges

(NewsNation) — Federal courts are inundated with thousands of challenges to immigration detentions, and a recent appeals court’s ruling indicates there’s no sign of a slowdown. Thousands detained as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration are arguing they are being unlawfully held, and legal experts say those challenges have led to longer detentions, even for those who might otherwise be released. It has also left U.S. attorneys underwater, and potential conflicting rulings across appellate courts could set up a showdown at the Supreme Court. After the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans sided with the White House’s push to hold immigrants without bond, detainees’ only option is to file a habeas corpus petition in federal court, and hundreds are being filed daily. More than 11,110 habeas petitions have been filed in the first weeks of 2026, surpassing the roughly 9,250 filed in the whole of 2025, according to court data analyzed by NewsNation. By comparison, the combined number of detention petitions from 2022 through 2024 was under 1,100. Peter Markowitz, an immigration law professor at Cardozo School of Law, called the volume “unprecedented,” adding that the number of petitions represents only a “sliver” of those detained, as many don’t have access to file. In a statement to NewsNation, the Department of Homeland Security said, “No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States. Additionally, it should come as no surprise that more habeas petitions are being filed by illegal aliens—especially after many activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people’s mandate for mass deportations.” Former judges warn impeachment push could undermine judicial system The 5th Circuit became the first appellate court to endorse the administration’s position on no-bond detentions. Other circuits are also weighing the issue in places like Minneapolis, where the Trump administration undertook immigration operations this year. ‘Human cost’ of no-bond detentions Rebecca Cassler, an attorney with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told NewsNation the real harm falls on detainees held with little justification and limited access to habeas relief. “A large majority of these people are people who would have never been subjected to mandatory detention before, and only are now because of a change in legal interpretation that ICE and then the immigration court formally adopted in the second half of last year,” she said. “It’s really important to understand this isn’t just like a civil kind of process where people don’t get to live with their families. The conditions in these detention centers are horrific, so there’s a really high human cost to this,” she added. There is no right to counsel in any immigration proceeding, which has created a bottleneck for attorneys stepping in to file and defend these petitions, Markowitz said. There are not enough attorneys to file habeas petitions for the number of people being held, he said. Regardless of status, people are entitled to counsel, and many are using legal pathways Congress created, such as asylum. They’re attending court and check-ins and pursuing their cases, Markowitz said, yet despite complying and posing no danger or flight risk, they remain unlawfully detained. Denise Gilman, a law professor who directs the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin, said the resolution is to detain fewer people. “The vast majority of those who are in immigration detention right now are people who were complying and had viable claims, and yet they’re sitting in a detention center at great taxpayer cost, by the way, as well as cost to their humanity and dignity and ability to fight their cases,” she said. Do ICE officers have absolute immunity? Ruling to deny bond hearings runs counter to decades of practice Earlier this month, the 5th Circuit upheld the Trump administration’s reinterpretation of longstanding immigration law, allowing the government to classify certain immigrants as falling under mandatory detention. “In contrast to past administrations, the current administration has chosen to exercise a greater portion of its authority by treating applicants for admission under the provision designed to apply to them,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, adding that the court found “the government’s position is correct.” The ruling, however, runs counter to 30 years of practice and understanding of the law under both Republican and Democratic administrations, which generally limited mandatory detention to those apprehended at or near the border and allowed others inside the U.S. to seek bond. In July 2025, a federal memo directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to hold all “applicants for admission” without legal standing in mandatory detention during removal proceedings — and that bond hearings were only available to immigrants who were lawfully admitted and later lost status. “It’s a problem of the administration’s making that they’re detaining more people and then stripping away rights of review in the administrative process,” Gilman said. Many such individuals are being indefinitely detained even when they have strong community ties, asylum claims or other factors that would have likely led to their release in the past, she said. Justice Department faces ‘crushing burden’ over habeas surge While courts face an unprecedented wave of petitions, the Justice Department is struggling to keep up. “This tidal wave of [habeas] litigation has placed a severe strain on the U.S. Attorney Office resources and has required the diversion of resources committed to other important priorities, including criminal cases,” wrote Justin Simmons, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, in filings to the 5th Circuit prior to the appellate court decision. In Minnesota, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen wrote in a court declaration last month that the “sheer number of cases, especially in light of the substantial increase in this month alone, is imposing a crushing burden on U.S. Attorney’s Offices. This has, in turn, compelled U.S. Attorney’s Offices to shift resources away from other critical priorities, including criminal matters.” In a statement, a DOJ spokesperson told NewsNation the Trump administration is complying with federal immigration law, putting the blame for the case volume on “rogue judges.” “The level of illegal aliens currently detained is a direct result of this Administration’s strong border security policies to keep the American people safe,” the spokesperson said. U.S. attorneys and ICE leadership have been threatened with contempt proceedings by federal judges for failing to comply with orders regarding habeas petitions, including missed deadlines for detainees’ bond hearings. Last month, Minnesota Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, appointed by former President George W. Bush, threatened to hold top ICE officials in contempt for ignoring court orders regarding immigrant bond hearings. FBI not cooperating in state’s investigation into Alex Pretti killing: Investigators Another Minnesota judge, Susan Nelson, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, also threatened contempt for the government after they missed a release deadline by five days, but canceled it after the detainee was freed. Patchwork rulings could create conflicting policies Among the thousands of habeas petitions filed, judges appear to be ruling more in favor of detainees, Markowitz said. “What’s unusual here is how kind of relatively uniform and lopsided the federal courts have been in their judgments,” he said. In hundreds of cases, judges have found ICE’s detention practices unlawful, while only a small number have reached the opposite conclusion, he added. The Justice Department began appealing those decisions more quickly toward the end of last year, with cases slated for several districts outside the 5th Circuit. Cassler of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said it’s likely other appellate courts will rule against the administration’s attempt to change the law. If the courts split, she warned, it could create a patchwork of outcomes, in which detention is permitted in some places but not others, potentially putting it in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Judges decry treatment of nursing and pregnant detainees in ICE custody

A Myanmar refugee, with a nursing five-month-old at home, whisked abruptly to Texas by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A Massachusetts woman in her third trimester, held under ICE’s guard at a hospital after experiencing medical distress in ICE detention. An Indian national who is three months pregnant and whose weight dropped to 90 pounds while in an ICE facility. Federal judges are sounding alarms about the Trump administration’s treatment of pregnant and nursing detainees in ICE custody — and the administration has given the courts conflicting, unclear answers about whether it is following its own policies that sharply restrict those detentions. Against that uncertainty, courts are being confronted with harrowing stories about women being separated from their nursing infants or housed in cramped and ill-equipped ICE facilities while pregnant, in conditions that threaten their health and have, in some cases, been followed by miscarriages. That crystallized over the weekend in Massachusetts, when Djeniffer Benvinda Semedo, a Cape Verdean national who is six months pregnant, was rushed to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for emergency care. The woman claimed that ICE held her in a temporary holding facility for three days, exacerbating her medical distress. On Tuesday, ICE released Benvinda Semedo ahead of an emergency effort by her attorneys to ask a judge for her release, though she remains hospitalized. Last month, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, a Clinton appointee based in Minnesota, took the Trump administration to task for detaining and transferring to Texas a legally admitted refugee who was still breastfeeding her five-month-old at the time. “There is something particularly craven about transferring a nursing refugee mother out-of-state,” Davis wrote, lamenting that the woman had “lost important bonding and nursing time with her baby” due to a detention he deemed illegal in the first place. He ordered her immediate release. Around the same time, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware, an Obama appointee in Nevada, ordered the immediate release of a woman who said her detention by ICE — despite a high risk pregnancy — had violated a 2021 policy that bars the detention of pregnant and nursing immigrants in most cases. For months, ICE has declined to say whether that Biden-era policy, which allows for detention only in “exceptional circumstances” such as threats to national security, remains in force. A Justice Department attorney told a federal judge in August that the policy had been effectively revoked by President Donald Trump’s Day One executive order requiring the administration to maximize its deportation and detention operations. But last month, another DOJ attorney said the policy was still in effect and binding on ICE. And last week in Wisconsin, a federal judge pressed the Trump administration to say why the nursing mother of a six-month-old had been detained. In response, DOJ said it consulted with the Department of Homeland Security and that DHS was “unable to identify” any reason to keep her detained. POLITICO has asked repeatedly about the policy and not gotten clarity about whether it remains in force. “Pregnancy in ICE detention is exceedingly rare — making up 0.133% of all illegal aliens in custody,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Pregnant women receive regular prenatal visits, mental health services, nutritional support, and accommodations aligned with community standards of care. This includes medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to necessary medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.” “Being in detention is a choice,” she added. “We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App.” But judges say many of these women should not have been detained in the first place — and when they are, it’s not clear ICE is following its guidance regarding their care. Confusion about the status of ICE’s policy toward pregnant and nursing women began in August, when a Justice Department attorney in Minnesota told U.S. District Judge Susan Nelson that the policy had been rescinded. (That DOJ lawyer, Ana Voss, was among a recent wave of resignations from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota in response to the mass deportation surge in the Twin Cities.) Nelson expressed skepticism about Voss’ position, noting that Trump’s executive order “contains no references to nursing mothers, let alone nursing mothers who lack any criminal history whatsoever.” “The Court finds that the harm of separating a nursing mother and child is self-evident,” Nelson wrote in ordering the woman’s release from ICE custody. A week later, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Texas-based Reagan appointee, ordered the immediate release of a woman with a nursing four-month-old, no criminal history and a U.S. citizen husband who was working to attain lawful immigration status. “Petitioner’s continued detention irreparably deprives her of her liberty, exposes her to adverse medical consequences, and prevents her from caring for her infant child,” Hoyt wrote. “The petitioner demonstrates that both she and her infant child are suffering irreparable harm.” The following month, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston, a Biden appointee in California, said a 32-year-old Nicaraguan detainee who was both nursing and newly pregnant appeared to have been deprived of proper equipment and care. “As a result of her sudden withdrawal from her baby and the inability to feed, she suffered the painful condition of having her milk ducts clog. There is no indication she was provided a breast pump or other assistance to maintain her milk supply,” Thurston wrote. Watch: The Conversation Play Video48:09 Fetterman on ICE, Israel and identifying as a Democrat | The Conversation Her decision came around the same time U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts, another Biden appointee based in California, barred ICE from detaining the nursing mother of an infant. He noted that ICE had previously attempted to arrest her but held off because her baby was with her at the time. In December, U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley, an Obama appointee in California, granted the release of an Indian national who said her weight had dropped to 90 pounds amid “dire conditions” of her detention by ICE. The judge said the woman’s reported medical concerns had put her pregnancy at risk and appeared to violate ICE’s 2021 policy. In some cases, judges have ruled against releasing pregnant detainees, saying conditions of confinement were not squarely within their purview to adjudicate. But even in those cases, the judges have raised concerns. “While the Court makes no findings as to the accuracy of Petitioner’s allegations regarding medical care, the Court finds them concerning,” U.S. District Judge William Johnson, a New Mexico-based appointee of George W. Bush, wrote in a Jan. 26 ruling. “The Court hopes and expects that, if they are true, that the appropriate Respondents will act promptly to ensure that Petitioner is receiving necessary medical care to prevent irreparable harm to her and her future child.” The same month, U.S. District Judge Maurice Hicks Jr., a George W. Bush appointee from Louisiana, said he was “not unsympathetic” to the “medical condition” of a woman who said she was pregnant with twins, but said he could not order emergency relief until the Trump administration had a chance to respond to her petition. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

ICE Chief Admits Agents Seem to Have Lied About Why They Shot Someone

On January 14, two ICE officers were involved in a confrontation with two Venezuelan immigrants in Minneapolis that ended with one of the agents shooting one of the men in the leg. The officers claimed that the immigrants were assaulting them with a broom and a shovel, justifying their use of force. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called it an “attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” and the men were charged with assault. Today, that case has been dismissed and those officers are under investigation for lying under oath—according to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. “A joint review by ICE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of video evidence has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements,” Lyons said in a statement Friday. “Both officers have been immediately placed on administrative leave pending the completion of a thorough internal investigation.… The U.S. Attorney’s Office is actively investigating these false statements.” Federal prosecutors dropped the charges against the Venezuelan men one day earlier. “The charges against them were based on lies by an ICE agent who recklessly shot into their home through a closed door,” said attorney Brian D. Clark, the men’s lawyer. “They are so happy justice is being served.” This is absolutely egregious. Two men were accosted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and one took a bullet to the leg. Then the federal government called them murderers and hit them with heavy charges, all for ICE’s own head to admit that his agents appear to have been lying under oath—a crime that this administration doesn’t seem to take very seriously. This shooting happened one week after Renee Good was killed, and just over a week before Alex Pretti was killed. The Trump administration lied to us about both of those events, as well. Only time will tell just how many more of these ICE shootings were offensive rather than defensive. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Voluntary departures hit record high as detained immigrants lose hope of getting released or winning in court

As pathways to freedom have narrowed in immigration courts across the United States, a record number of detainees are giving up their cases and voluntarily leaving the country. Last year, 28% of completed immigration removal cases among those in detention ended in voluntary departure, a higher share than in any year prior, a CBS News analysis of decades of court records found. That figure only appears to be climbing as the Trump administration's immigration crackdown widens and detention populations swell. The percentage of voluntary departures among those detained grew nearly every month of 2025, reaching 38% in December. The analysis does not include those who were not given a hearing before an immigration judge, such as immigrants in expedited removal proceedings. "It's set up for every individual who is detained to get to the point where they're just emotionally drained and exhausted through it all of the way that we're being treated, to just say, 'OK, all I want is my freedom,'" said Vilma Palacios, who agreed to return to Honduras in late December after being detained for six months in Basile, Louisiana. Detained cases ending in voluntary removal View monthly rate 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 0 5 10 15 20 25 30% 28% Chart: Julia Ingram / CBS NewsSource: Executive Office for Immigration Review Palacios, 22, had been in the U.S. since she was 6 years old. Last June, a month after she graduated from nursing school at Louisiana State University, ICE agents arrested her at a local police station after she brought in a car for a routine inspection. She has no criminal record. Palacios said she and her family were apprehended and detained for a month at the border when they arrived in 2010 but were released and pursued an asylum case in the years following. Court records show her case was administratively closed in 2015, when she was 12 years old, meaning it was taken off the docket indefinitely. In a statement to CBS News, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote that Palacios "freely admitted to being in the U.S. illegally" and "never sought or gained any legal status." The video player is currently playing an ad. Palacios pushed back on claims that she never sought legal status, saying she had been awaiting a work permit renewal when she was arrested. Since then, Palacios says she had an immigration attorney helping her navigate the immigration court proceeding process and thought she was doing everything necessary to remain in the U.S. lawfully. She says she was shocked when immigration agents detained her. She said her subsequent six-month stay in detention — during which she had no contact with family or friends — was emotionally exhausting. "Everything was taken from me, like being ripped apart from every person that I loved, and being surrounded with people that I had never met in my life, and [ICE] having control over every movement that I made, was just something very difficult to me," she said. "It got to the point where I didn't see that I had no other option but just to say, OK, just please give me my freedom back." Palacios said she tried to offer medical care to fellow detainees in need when they faced delays in accessing doctors and nurses, but detention facility staff told her not to. "Many women would always come up to me, or come up to the officers, and complain about the waiting time, that they weren't receiving the treatment that they needed, that they were sick, and still had to wait two, three, four weeks, even months after, to be called," Palacios said. About 73,000 people were being held in ICE detention in mid-January, the highest level ever recorded by DHS, CBS News previously reported. "The conditions in the detention centers have never ever been worse because they're so overcrowded," said Jen Grant, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society in New York. Palacios asked an immigration judge for a bond for her release from detention, but her request was denied. "They weren't looking at the roots that I created in the United States," Palacios said. "The job that I had lined up, the career, the life that I had built for myself, they never took nothing into consideration." She's not the only one who struggled to get out of detention while her case was pending. Last year, 30% of rulings on bond were favorable to detainees, down from 59% in 2024, the CBS News analysis found. Under the Trump administration, DHS has moved to subject anyone who entered the U.S. illegally to mandatory detention, rather than only those apprehended near the border, removing judges' authority to grant bond. In December, a California district judge ruled that DHS's sweeping use of mandatory detention is unlawful, but the chief immigration judge issued guidance telling immigration judges the ruling was not binding, according to a memo obtained by the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Judges may also be afraid to rule out of step with the administration's deportation agenda, Grant said, as the Trump administration has fired dozens of judges. A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the nation's immigration courts, wrote in a statement that "immigration judges are independent adjudicators and decide all matters before them, including requests for voluntary departure, on a case-by-case basis, according to U.S. immigration law, regulations, and precedent decisions." DHS did not respond to inquiries about the increase in voluntary departures and use of mandatory detention. Many detainees are seeking release by filing habeas corpus petitions in federal court, which compel a judge to evaluate the legality of their detention. In some cases, that shifts the burden of proof onto the government to show that a detainee is a flight risk. But not everyone has the resources to file a habeas corpus petition, Grant said, and not all petitions are successful. One immigrant who asked that CBS News identify her only by her initials, U.G., as she is still seeking legal pathways to appeal her deportation, was relieved when a judge finally ordered for her deportation after 13 months in detention. Although she didn't ask for voluntary departure, at one point she tried to convince her legal team to ask for her removal. "I couldn't fathom just continuing to sit there," she said. "Every day that I sit here, I'm choosing to sit here. I can sign and have them remove me in three days." Even if she had been granted her claim for relief, she believed DHS would appeal it, leaving her in detention for even longer, or try to send her to a country other than her native Mexico, she said. "They believe that the likelihood of them winning their case is so much lower than it ever used to be," attorney Christopher Kinnison said of some of his clients. He has been working as an immigration lawyer in Louisiana for 15 years. Many of the people in removal proceedings are seeking asylum, and asylum grant rates have plummeted, according to immigration court data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. More than half of asylum requests were granted each month from 2022 to 2024, but 29% were granted by December 2025. In recent months, DHS has also moved to cut thousands of asylum cases short by asking judges to send asylum seekers to third countries. Successful asylum and bond requests plummet in 2025 Figures represent share of total decisions Chart: Julia Ingram / CBS NewsSource: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Executive Office for Immigration Review "People have no hope," Grant said. "It's from seeing other people in court who fight their cases, who get their cases denied, who have bond hearings ... and then they get denied." After a judge granted Palacios' request for voluntary departure, she was flown to Honduras in handcuffs, with additional metal chains around her waist and feet. "It's something that I feel like it's very inhumane, the way that we are shackled and brought to our country," she said. "It doesn't seem like it's a voluntary departure. It seemed that you're still being held as a criminal, kind of like a hostage." Now in a country that she can hardly remember, Palacios is beginning to rebuild her life, even volunteering at a local toy drive in her new community. Pacios did not appeal her case after being sent back to Honduras, but she tells CBS News she hasn't given up hope of returning to the U.S. one day. "My goal and dream is still to be a nurse in the United States," Palacios said. "If I receive an opportunity here, to be able to gain experience, in the meantime, to be able to continue making an impact… to be able to help those in need, I always say, why not?" For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

How the head of ICE responded to questions in Congress over Trump’s immigration policies

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s top immigration officials appeared before Congress Tuesday for the first time since the shooting deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis, seeking to defend their officers’ actions as their agencies face intensifying scrutiny over nationwide immigration enforcement operations. Todd Lyons, who is the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, came in for some of the sharpest questioning during a more than 3-hour-long hearing in front of the House Homeland Security Committee. He appeared alongside Rodney Scott, who heads Customs and Border Protection, and Joseph Edlow, who leads U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Lawmakers asked them about issues that have dominated the public discourse since Trump launched his mass deportations agenda at the start of his second term. Here are some of their answers. Defending officers after 2 Americans were killed in Minneapolis Lyons and Scott faced scrutiny over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti but they repeatedly declined to answer questions, citing active investigations. Lyons was asked if he would apologize for the way some Trump administration officials characterized Good as an agitator, which he declined to do. “I welcome the opportunity to speak to the family in private. But I’m not going to comment on any active investigation,” Lyons said. Lyons said he had seen the video that captured Pretti’s shooting but said he could not comment because of the ongoing investigation. Related Stories ICE chief defends his officers' actions before Congress after the deaths of 2 protesters ICE chief defends his officers' actions before Congress after the deaths of 2 protesters The shootings in Minneapolis are upending the politics of immigration in Congress The shootings in Minneapolis are upending the politics of immigration in Congress Senate passes Trump-backed government funding deal, sending to House Senate passes Trump-backed government funding deal, sending to House Masks worn by immigration officers Democrats painted masked officers as lawless and unaccountable. Republicans said masks are needed to protect officers from doxing. Asked if he would commit to making his officers take off their masks and requiring them to wear “standard uniforms with identifiable badges,” Lyons answered with one word: “No.” Lyons has said repeatedly that he supports officers who feel that they need to wear masks to protect their identities and their families. Body cameras being deployed to officers Lyons and Scott said thousands of federal immigration officers are already outfitted with body cameras, with more to come. Lyons said the body camera footage caught in Minneapolis would be released to the public. “That’s one thing that I’m committed to is full transparency. And I fully welcome body cameras all across the spectrum in all of our law enforcement activities,” Lyons said. Lyons denies 5-year-old boy was used as bait The case of Liam Conejo Ramos, who was wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack while he was surrounded by immigration officers, has sparked controversy over the administration’s crackdown in Minnesota. The boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who originally is from Ecuador, were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. Asked about the case, Lyons denied that the boy was used as bait to get one of the parents out of the house, as neighbors and school officials have alleged. “He was obviously upset. We comforted him. The officers actually placed him in one of our vehicles, played his favorite song, favorite music. Then they took him to McDonald’s,” Lyons said. A DHS funding lapse will threaten the country’s security, officials said The congressional hearing took place in the shadow of a looming government shutdown that would only affect the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats are threatening to block funding for the department when it expires unless there are more restraints for ICE and other law enforcement agencies carrying out Trump’s federal immigration agenda. Republican Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi blamed Democrats for a possible shutdown and asked the agency heads whether such a shutdown would make the country less safe. They all answered that it would. “It will have a great impact,” said Lyons. He said a shutdown would particularly harm the department’s task forces on transnational crimes and terrorism. ICE at the World Cup Lyons was asked if he would agree to pausing ICE operations during this year’s FIFA World Cup. A Democratic lawmaker said visitors were concerned by ICE’s tactics. But Lyons declined to commit to a pause. “ICE is dedicated to ensuring that everyone that visits the facilities will have a safe and secure event,” Lyons said. Questions over guarding voting precincts With Trump’s call for the federal government to “take over” elections, the ranking member of the committee, Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, asked the officials to answer if they are involved in any efforts to guard voting precincts, with the midterms set for later this year. “You’ve not been asked to start deploying people for areas anywhere?” Thompson asked.

Trump administration names 33 new immigration judges, most with military backgrounds

Feb 5 (Reuters) - The Justice Department has hired 33 new immigration judges, including 27 temporary ones, after firing or pushing out more than 100 others as the Trump administration seeks out new recruits to serve as what it dubs "deportation judges." The Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review said the new immigration judges were sworn in on Thursday, following the October hiring of 36 immigration judges, including 25 temporary ones, after months of workforce cuts. Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. Advertisement · Scroll to continue The new judges will serve in immigration courts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington. "After four years of Biden administration hiring practices that undermined the credibility and impartiality of the immigration courts, this Department of Justice continues to restore integrity to our immigration system and is proud to welcome these talented immigration judges to join in our mission of protecting national security and public safety," a Justice Department spokesperson said. Half of the new permanent judges have a military background, as do 100% of the temporary judges who can serve up to six months. Advertisement · Scroll to continue The Pentagon in September had said that military and civilian lawyers working for the U.S. Defense Department under the leadership of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would temporarily serve as immigration judges.More than 100 immigration judges out of about 700 have been fired or pushed out since President Donald Trump's return to office in January 2025, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a move that the organization says has depleted the number of judges available to handle a surge in cases as the administration ramps up arrests and deportations. The immigration courts face a backlog of about 3.2 million cases as of December 31, according to data from Mobile Pathways, a nonprofit that analyzes immigration court data and promotes access to justice for immigrants. 00:01 Ryan Routh's lawyer to appeal his conviction and sentence The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard Under Trump, thousands of migrants who in the past would have been eligible for release on bond have been subjected to mandatory detention after the Board of Immigration Appeals in September issued a ruling reinterpreting a key statute in a way that hundreds of judges in the federal courts have ruled is wrong. The Trump administration plans to publish a fast-track regulation on Friday that would cut the time for someone to appeal an immigration judge's decision to 10 days and make it easier for the appeals board to dismiss appeals. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US

Despite protests in small towns and cities across the US, the Trump administration is pushing ahead with the purchase of warehouses it plans to convert into immigration jails in what could be the largest expansion of such detention capacity in US history. The cost for acquiring two warehouses alone was $172 million. A third in El Paso, Texas, could be among the largest jails of any kind in the country if completed as envisioned, with 8,500 beds. The deals mark the latest turn in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to use as many as 23 warehouses for detaining thousands of immigrants arrested by federal agents in Minneapolis and other cities. Those aggressive enforcement actions have ignited clashes with protesters and led to agents killing two US citizens. On Jan. 16, the administration paid $102 million for a site near Hagerstown, Maryland, according to a local court filing. A week later, the government paid $70 million in cash for a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona. The price tags — roughly in line with the industry average for the warehouse market — cover just the acquisition of the sites, which are currently empty shells. ICE still has to pay companies to outfit the buildings with toilets, showers, beds, dining and recreation areas and then run them as detention centers. 0130_CITYLAB_ICE WAREHOUSES US Senator Chris Van Hollen speaks to protesters against ICE in Hagerstown on Jan. 20.Source: Office of US Senator Chris Van Hollen The El Paso site was purchased by the Department of Homeland Security recently, according to people familiar with the transaction who asked not to be named discussing a confidential process. But the sale price hasn’t yet been made public. As the political pressure intensifies, some deals are collapsing. Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison’s company said Friday that a transaction to sell its 550,000-square-foot warehouse in Ashland, Virginia, “will not be proceeding.” Earlier in the week, the company had said it had initially agreed to sell the facility to a US government contractor but that “some time later, we became aware of the ultimate owner and intended use of the building.” It added: “We understand that the conversation around immigration policy and enforcement is particularly heated, and has become much more so over the past few weeks. We respect that this issue is deeply important to many people.” On Thursday, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said he’d met with the owners of a warehouse identified by ICE who told him they were no longer going to sell or lease the facility to the agency. “I commend the owners for their decision and thank them on behalf of the people of Oklahoma City,” Holt said. “I ask that every single property owner in Oklahoma City exhibit the same concern for our community in the days ahead.” The warehouses, many of which originally were designed and marketed as e-commerce distribution facilities, represent a significant pivot for the administration’s $45 billion immigration detention buildout. Last year, it relied on tent camps constructed in remote places like the Florida Everglades and an Army base in Texas. ICE Pivots To Warehouses Warehouses identified by ICE to convert into immigration detention facilities Source: Bloomberg reporting Note: The 23 sites depicted are part of the agency's warehouse plans. Sites could be changed or removed. Little has been publicly shared about ICE’s plans for the new detention centers in small towns and cities across the country. Already, many residents have voiced opposition and local leaders are considering options to prevent the agency from using them. The concerns include both immigration politics as well as land-use issues — proximity to homes and schools, and questions of sewer capacity and water demand. Given such pushback and the logistical challenges, there’s no guarantee each of the 23 sites will be converted. More than 200 people showed up to protest the warehouse plans in Hagerstown on Jan. 20 in below-freezing temperatures. “One of the most obscene, one of the most inhumane, one of the most illegal operations being carried out by this Trump Administration is what they’re doing at the Department of Homeland Security and ICE,” US Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told the protesters. “We do not want an ICE facility here in the state of Maryland.” DHS and ICE didn’t respond to a detailed request for comment. Neither did the companies that sold the properties in Maryland, Arizona and Texas — Fundrise, Rockefeller Group and Flint Development, respectively. The 23 proposed sites would range in size from 500 to 9,500 beds. If completed as planned, the larger facilities would be some of the biggest detention centers of any kind in the country. For example, the 9,500-bed facility ICE is planning for Hutchins, Texas, could fit the entire average daily jail population of Dallas County with thousands of beds to spare. In recent weeks the federal government has given tours of potential sites in more than 20 cities to contractors and shared with them the designs, including preferred layouts, for at least 15 of the sites, according to people familiar with the confidential process. Contractors — the ones who will turn these warehouses into jails — were required to send in their proposals for the first sites this week, starting with Hagerstown, according to those sources. To reach its goal of deporting 1 million people a year, the Trump administration has said it needs more than 100,000 detention beds. Currently, there are more than 73,000 people in ICE custody, a record. The new sites could give the agency an additional 76,500 beds, according to documents shared with Bloomberg News. To fill all of them, the administration would have to expand immigration arrests beyond what it is already doing, said Emma Winger, deputy legal director at the American Immigration Council. “To reach these kinds of numbers, they’d need to go out into the communities and find people who’ve been living their lives and been here a long time,” Winger said. “They’d have to dramatically increase their presence in communities across the country.” ICE and Customs and Border Protection have already ramped up their presence and arrests on American streets. The estimated 3,000 immigration agents deployed in Minneapolis-St. Paul is roughly 10 times the number sent last September to Chicago, a significantly larger city. In January alone, federal immigration agents in the Twin Cities fatally shot two people, Renée Good and Alex Pretti. At least six people have died nationwide since Trump’s crackdown began. As the administration increases its law enforcement efforts on the ground, it’s also casting a wider net for the types of people who could end up in detention. More than 1 million people have had their temporary immigration statuses canceled since Trump returned to office, putting them at risk of deportation. Immigration officers have also arrested immigrants at routine court appearances and check-ins. More recently, in Minnesota, DHS said it’s targeting 5,600 immigrants to reverify their status claims. That has resulted in some people with legal status getting arrested, jailed and flown to Texas for interviews before being released and forced to pay their own way home, according to lawyers and advocates. Cities Identified by ICE These 23 locales were named in plans for warehouse-based jails Source: Bloomberg reporting Note: * Owners of the facilities ICE identified in these cities say they have no plans to sell to the agency. This list is based on ICE's plans and may change. Some of the cities are approximate locations, based on nearest municipality. Unlike the cities where ICE and CBP agents have fanned out for arrest operations in recent months, many of the locations ICE has identified for its warehouse jails are in Republican-leaning areas. Still, residents in many of the chosen municipalities have been trying to block ICE’s arrival. This month, demonstrators protested warehouse conversions in New Hampshire, Utah, Texas and Georgia after the Washington Post published an earlier version of the conversion plan. In mid-January, a planned tour for contractors of a potential warehouse site in San Antonio was canceled after protesters showed up the same day, according to a person familiar with the scheduled visit. In Salt Lake City, the Ritchie Group, a local family business that owns the warehouse ICE identified as a future “mega center” jail, said it had “no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government” after protesters showed up at their offices to pressure them. Earlier in January, in Merrimack, New Hampshire, around 1,200 people protested the conversion of a warehouse owned by real estate giant CBRE. In the Village of Chester, New York, residents attended a community meeting to call on their leaders to stop ICE’s plans in any way they could. The more than 400,000-square-foot warehouse that ICE has its eyes on there is owned by the holding company of billionaire and former Trump adviser Carl Icahn. Social Circle, Georgia, is one of the 15 locations where ICE has shared design details with contractors. Marketing materials for the warehouse there — as well as brochures for sites in Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Texas and Pennsylvania — highlight the suitability for commerce, distribution and logistics. Some of them cite their proximity to large stores such as Walmart. Eric Taylor, Social Circle’s city manager, said this week that he still hadn’t received any communication from federal officials about plans there for an 8,500-bed detention center. Taylor said the town of roughly 5,000 people doesn’t have the infrastructure to host the planned facility. The city has 17 sworn police officers and 14 firefighters, and its water and sewage capacity is already maxed out, Taylor said, adding that property taxes on the warehouse would drop to zero if acquired by the federal government. The building is also close to the town’s new elementary school. Proposed Detention Center Could Overwhelm Small Georgia Town Sources: Google Earth Pro, Bloomberg reporting Local governments are limited in what they can do to prevent ICE from opening and operating a detention facility, even if it doesn’t meet local zoning requirements. That’s because federal actions typically supersede local rules, though it can become more complicated when private companies are doing things on behalf of the federal government. Municipalities will have other tools to stall or inhibit ICE’s work: The federal government can’t force a municipality to build a new public road or other utilities because a facility needs it. And many of the warehouses have their sewage and water systems serviced by municipalities, which means they could have a say over whether it has the capacity to meet a large jail’s demands. The Trump administration’s push to make 3,000 immigration arrests per day — and its insistence that those adjudicating their cases do so from detention — has created an intense demand for jail space. It has gone through multiple iterations of plans to massively expand its detention capacity. In the early days of Trump’s second term, ICE leveraged longstanding relationships with private prison companies such as CoreCivic and Geo Group to boost detention space. Those companies gave ICE access to additional beds in their existing jails, purchased and leased new facilities and reopened shuttered ones. Those companies said in November earnings calls that they still have a total of more than 30,000 beds that they could bring online, if asked by the federal government. “We continue to believe that detention beds like these represent the best value and are the most humane, most efficient logistically, have the highest audit compliance scores in their system, are more secure, weatherproof and are readily available,” then-CoreCivic Chief Executive Officer Damon Hininger said on his company’s earnings call. Yet, by the middle of last year, the Trump administration had pivoted to a plan that was outlined in Project 2025: using soft-sided facilities, or tents, to quickly erect new detention camps. ICE created a shortlist of potential partners, which included a number of companies that typically build emergency tent camps in the wake of natural disasters. Two large tent camps grew out of that strategy shift: a state-run facility in the Florida Everglades nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Republicans and a federally run camp on a military base in El Paso, Texas. Both have been plagued by allegations of inhumane conditions and mismanagement. Aerial views of ICE detention facility in Fort Bliss, Texas An aerial view shows an ICE detention facility being built to house immigrants at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, last August.Photographer: Paul Ratje/REUTERS At El Paso’s Camp East Montana, now the largest US immigration detention facility with about 3,000 people detained daily, the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocates allege a pattern of excessive force, sexual abuse and threats to coerce non-Mexican nationals to cross into the Mexican desert. ICE has denied allegations of abuse and said all people being deported are given due-process protections. At least three people have died at the camp over the past two months. On Jan. 3, Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant, died at the facility following a struggle with detention staff. Federal officials told the Washington Post that officers were attempting to restrain Campos during a suicide attempt. An autopsy report later released by the El Paso County medical examiner’s office stated his death was a homicide and that he was asphyxiated after being restrained by law enforcement. On Jan. 14, Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, died in what ICE also said was a presumed suicide. Get the Morning & Evening Briefing Americas newsletters. Start every morning with what you need to know followed by context and analysis on news of the day each evening. Plus, Bloomberg Weekend. Enter your email By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. These incidents come amid a rising number of deaths in ICE detention since Trump returned to the White House. More than 30 people died in detention last year, the highest figure in two decades, and Campos and Diaz are two of the six people who have died in the agency’s custody since the beginning of the year. A report from the American Immigration Council attributes the cause of many of last year’s deaths to ICE’s failure to provide adequate medical care. Winger, the council’s deputy legal director, said she expects dangers will persist, especially considering the capacity that ICE is planning for the new warehouse detention facilities. “I suppose there’s ways to build enough toilets and private places,” she said. “But the various health needs of people in these facilities and ensuring that you even know who you’re holding and who has vulnerabilities and who needs medication — it just seems impossible.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Judge orders 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his dad released from ICE detention

A 5-year-old boy and his father must be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they’ve been held after being detained by immigration officers in Minnesota, a federal judge ordered Saturday in a ruling that harshly criticized the Trump administration’s approach to enforcement. Images of Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, being surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers sparked even more outcry about the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who sits in San Antonio and was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, said in his ruling that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.” Biery had previously ruled that the boy and his father could not be removed from the U.S., at least for now. Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who is originally from Ecuador, were detained in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights on Jan. 20. They were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas. Related Stories 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and father return to Minnesota from ICE facility in Texas 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and father return to Minnesota from ICE facility in Texas What Trump officials and immigration lawyers say about ICE detaining a 5-year-old What Trump officials and immigration lawyers say about ICE detaining a 5-year-old Father of 5-year-old detained in Minnesota disputes government assertion he abandoned the boy Father of 5-year-old detained in Minnesota disputes government assertion he abandoned the boy Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has called that description of events an “abject lie.” It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway. The government says Arias entered the U.S. illegally from Ecuador in December 2024. The family’s lawyer says he has a pending asylum claim that allows him to remain in the country. Their detention led to a protest at the Texas family detention center and a visit by two Texas Democratic members of Congress. In his order Saturday, Biery said: “apparent also is the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence,” suggesting the Trump administration’s actions echo those that then-author and future President Thomas Jefferson enumerated as grievances against England’s King George. Among them: “He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People” and “He has excited domestic Insurrection among us.” Biery included in his ruling a photo of Liam and references to two lines in the Bible: “Jesus said, ’Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,” and “Jesus wept.” He’s not the only federal judge who has been tough on ICE recently. A Minnesota-based judge with a conservative pedigree described the agency as a serial violator of court orders related to the crackdown. Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, has said there’s a target of 3,000 immigration arrests a day. It’s that figure which the judge seemed to refer to as a “quota.” Spokespersons from the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately reply to requests for comment. The Law Firm of Jennifer Scarborough, which is representing the boy and his family, said in a statement that it was working “to ensure a safe and timely reunion.” “We are pleased that the family will now be able to focus on being together and finding some peace after this traumatic ordeal,” they said. During Wednesday’s visit by Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, the boy slept in the arms of his father, who said Liam was frequently tired and not eating well at the detention facility that houses about 1,100 people, according to Castro. Detained families report poor conditions like worms in food, fighting for clean water and poor medical care at the detention center since its reopening last year. In December, a report filed by ICE acknowledged they held about 400 children longer than the recommended limit of 20 days. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.