ICE is now funded through end of Trump's term, raising worries about oversight

Federal agencies responsible for immigration enforcement are set to receive tens of billions more dollars after Congress voted to fund them not just for the year, but through the rest of President Trump's term. The House narrowly voted on Tuesday to direct roughly $70 billion to the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the second multi-billion dollar infusion of money to the agencies in the last year muscled through by Republicans alone. The measure passed by a vote of 214 to 212. Trump signed the bill on Wednesday. The vote marks the end of a 115 day standoff over immigration policy. After federal officers shot and killed two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year, Democrats refused to back more funding for ICE and Border Patrol, with the goal of forcing changes to immigration enforcement tactics. Sponsor Message But as negotiations fell apart, Republicans moved to circumvent Democrats using a special procedure known as reconciliation to fund the agencies without acquiescing to any of the reforms they were demanding. A view of the U.S. Capitol on June 4, 2026. Politics Senate Republicans pass immigration funding after overnight vote In the Senate last week, one Republican joined all Democrats in an unsuccessful attempt to block the measure. The lopsided votes highlighted a Republican caucus continuing to endorse Trump's immigration agenda as Democrats warn that Congress has ceded its ability to provide oversight by funneling these agencies billions of dollars with few strings attached. ICE gets more than three times its annual funding Through this legislation, Congress is giving ICE more than three times its last annual budget. Though technically this funding is meant to cover three years, unlike a traditional annual funding bill, the money comes with few stipulations on how and when it should be spent. While most annual spending measures provide funds for just that fiscal year, this measure includes lump sums that need to be spent only by the end of fiscal year 2029, including: $38 billion for ICE to hire, pay, train and equip its officers and agents. That includes $7 billion for Homeland Security Investigations and $31 billion for immigration enforcement work like hiring more attorneys, supporting local law enforcement who coordinate with ICE and technology like body cameras; $22 billion for Border Patrol to pay, train, recruit and equip agents and personnel. That includes $13 billion specifically for immigration enforcement work; $5 billion for border security technology and screening, including artificial intelligence; $350 million for enforcement in localities that do not coordinate directly with ICE. Sponsor Message Legislation passed in April to fund most of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol did include provisions that would provide funding for the agency to purchase body cameras, stipulate congressional oversight of detention centers and deescalation training for officers and agents. Lawmakers agreed to separate funding for ICE and Border Patrol as Republicans and Democrats struggled to reach a compromise on reforms even as a record-long DHS shutdown dragged on. But now ICE and Border Patrol will be funded without the changes Democrats were demanding, including requiring judicial warrants to enter homes and prohibiting officers from wearing masks. The package also lacks reforms with bipartisan support, such as requiring officers to wear body cameras. Neither measure included funding for internal oversight offices that conduct investigations into detention center conditions; however, the April measure to fund all of the agency included $20 million for the DHS inspector general to specifically conduct oversight of detention facilities. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stand near a gate at Delaney Hall, an immigrant detention center in Newark, N.J., in May 2025. Immigration DHS blames funding lapse for shutdown of internal detention oversight Not only is this standoff ending without Democrats achieving the reforms they pressed for, the agencies will be insulated from additional pressure through the appropriations process for three years. More dollars after an unprecedented boost Both ICE and CBP received a massive influx of funding last year, also passed by Republicans through the budget reconciliation process, that has allowed both agencies to largely continue operating even as Democrats refused to provide them annual funding for the last several months. In this photo, two observers holding up smartphones stand in the background as they record two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis on February 5. The Immigration Debate How a $75 billion windfall from Congress has insulated ICE ICE's usual annual budget is about $10 billion. The $75 billion boost last summer made ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement agency and enabled a hiring surge that doubled its ranks in a matter of months. Former agency leaders, Democrats and even some Republicans have warned that the surge of money limits the ability of Congress to provide oversight when it comes to how that money is spent and how the agency operates. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was the only Republican to vote against this latest funding measure in the Senate last week. She wrote in a statement that by appropriating funding for three fiscal years instead of the usual one, the measure "weakens the normal budgeting process and sets another precedent for avoiding it when we find ourselves in disagreement." Sponsor Message "In doing so, it reduces Congress' ability to apply reasonable checks on immigration policy for the remainder of this administration and into the next," she wrote. Other Republicans say they were left with no choice once Democrats decided to withhold funding for these agencies as leverage to extract reforms. "We're attempting here to fund ICE and CBP at last year's operating budget plus inflation, that's all we're talking about here," House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said shortly before the vote. "This is not a slush fund, it's regular, normal funding. And we're going to do it not for one year, but for three years so we don't end up here again." ICE "got a shopping list" ICE officials have been gearing up for the potential new cash for months. "Apparently we're going to get more reconciliation money, so I got a shopping list," said Matt Elliston, ICE assistant director for law enforcement systems and analysis, speaking on a panel at the Border Security Expo in Arizona last month. Among the items on his list are wearable headset displays so that officers do not need to be on their phones during an operation and data to help identify where someone targeted for arrest lives. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said absent the reconciliation funds, the agency was struggling to correctly pay its employees and fulfill contracts. While the agencies welcome the funds, immigration advocates are concerned that funding the agency outside the normal appropriations process means provisions that tell the agency how to do its work are not included. ICE agents confront protesters as they gather outside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall on June 8, 2026, in Newark, New Jersey. The agency will receive tens of billions in new funding through the end of Trump's term under a GOP bill passed by Congress. ICE agents confront protesters as they gather outside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall on June 8, 2026, in Newark, New Jersey. The agency will receive tens of billions in new funding through the end of Trump's term under a GOP bill passed by Congress. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, said in the past DHS annual funding bills included specific guardrails on the spending including requirements for the agency to report data on who it is detaining and specific treatment of pregnant women in custody. Sponsor Message "It's very dangerous," Altman said. "And it means that the agency will move forward with even fewer accountability mechanisms than we've seen in the past." Altman also raised concerns about the $350 million dedicated to immigration enforcement in areas that are not "qualified cooperating jurisdictions," meaning a locality that is not a part of programs that allow local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law. "The DHS secretary has wide discretion to just say these are not sufficiently cooperating with the White House's mass deportation agenda," she said. "So it's concerning in terms of where the money will go." Politics of immigration enforcement President Trump shakes hands with the newly sworn in Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin in the Oval Office on March 24, 2026. Mullin has dialed back some of the aggressive enforcement operations that drew the national spotlight. President Trump shakes hands with the newly sworn in Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin in the Oval Office on March 24, 2026. Mullin has dialed back some of the aggressive enforcement operations that drew the national spotlight. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images After the two killings in Minneapolis, Democrats and a contingent of Republicans in Congress said they wanted to take action to reign in the tactics of federal immigration officers. For weeks this winter, debate over President Trump's immigration policy consumed Capitol Hill. But despite the protracted fight over immigration enforcement funding, that discussion has largely subsided. The dome of the U.S. Capitol is framed through a tree on January 25. Snow had accumulated in various nooks of the come. Politics A bipartisan effort to save health subsidies failed. Will ICE reform be different? Republicans criticized Democrats for pushing an unserious list of demands. Democrats criticized Republicans for dismissing attempts at meaningful reform. A new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has dialed back some of the aggressive enforcement operations that drew the national spotlight. And other controversies, like the war in Iran, have overtaken the immigration policy debate. So much so that when Senate Republicans finally moved to approve the $70 billion for ICE and Border Patrol, much of the debate focused on an unrelated fund proposed by the Trump administration to compensate people who claim to have been wrongfully targeted by the government. Reflecting on what followed after the two deaths in her home state, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., says it has been hard for her personally to come to terms with the reality that Democrats were unable to extract the policy changes they demanded. And meanwhile, Smith says Minnesotans are still dealing with the fallout from the crackdown — like kids who did not return to school or businesses that never reopened — even as public attention shifted away. Sponsor Message "This is the way it goes, Americans have really busy complicated lives, they're trying to figure out how to pay rent and buy groceries, but what they saw, I don't think they're going to forget it," Smith says. "And that's what I mean when I say we've lost these votes but that doesn't mean we've lost the fight." Even if public opinion on Trump's immigration agenda does help Democrats' take control of Congress next year, Democrats' ability to extract changes through the appropriations process will be limited now that the agencies have resources to last until 2029. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Largest ICE detention facility wasted millions and put detainees at risk, report finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mismanagement at a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas created unsafe conditions that contributed to detainee deaths and suffering even as millions of wasted tax dollars enriched contractors, according to a federal report released Tuesday. The Government Accountability Office report documents serious problems at Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso where three detainees have died in little more than six months. Evidence in one of those deaths, of a 55-year-old Cuban migrant who died in January after being held down by guards, was “missing or destroyed,” the report found. ICE rushed to open the camp in August before construction was complete and failed to conduct required oversight to ensure detainees were held in sanitary conditions and receiving adequate medical care, according to the report. The Department of Homeland Security noted that ICE has replaced the contractor running the facility. “This new contractor will allow Camp East Montana to continue abiding by the highest detention standards with the ability to provide more medical care on-site,” said DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis. Related Stories President Donald Trump talks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, early Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) Trump signs bill giving nearly $70B to his immigration enforcement agenda through end of his term 1 MIN READ 127 Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration, Federal Air Marshals, patrol around Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Va., Tuesday, March 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce,File) House passes $70B bill to fund immigration enforcement for 3 years, sending to Trump 4 MIN READ 341 A sign for the Internal Revenue Service building is pictured in Washington, May 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) A watchdog report flags security risks in the IRS-ICE taxpayer data-sharing deal 2 MIN READ 39 The GAO’s findings echo past reporting by The Associated Press and other news outlets about dangerous conditions at Camp East Montana, which quickly became the nation’s largest immigration detention facility. But the government report also details previously undisclosed incidents, including that a detainee escaped in October due to what ICE called the contractor’s oversight failure. In January, a security guard lost a loaded firearm inside the facility that was never recovered. The contractor failed to administer skin tests to screen detainees for tuberculosis, relying on a questionnaire instead, the report said. The inadequate screening allowed a detainee with tuberculosis to be housed with the general population, which later suffered an outbreak. GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency in Congress that investigates how federal funds are spent and evaluates whether programs and policies are operating effectively. The office opened its review into Camp East Montana at the request of Democrats in the House and Senate. Sign up for Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the biggest headlines of the day. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois called the report’s findings “damning.” “We now know even more details of how dangerous and irresponsible the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign truly is,” said Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that “those detained are experiencing conditions that shock the conscience.” A rush to build led to an inexperienced contractor Facing pressure to increase its detention capacity, the Trump administration routed the contract to build Camp East Montana through the Army to speed construction after ICE twice failed to successfully award one. That resulted in selecting a small, little-known contractor, Acquisition Logistics, for the $1.3 billion deal despite it having no prior experience operating detention facilities and facing what ICE called a “significant learning curve.” The Army — and later ICE after the camp was transferred to the agency — wasted millions of dollars paying for services it did not need because the contract did not account for fluctuations in the detainee population, the report said. The Army blew up to $11.5 million paying for guards, medical services, transportation and meals in the weeks before the camp held detainees. The agencies wasted millions more because it was contracted to pay the cost of meals for the camp’s maximum population of 5,000, even when the number of detainees there dropped to around 1,600, the report said. Facility didn’t initially meet detention standards The facility did not meet ICE detention standards or the contract’s requirements in several ways when it opened, in part because it had not been inspected as required by ICE policy, the report said. The camp lacked security cameras on the perimeter and had other surveillance blind spots that raised the risk of sexual assaults or escapes. The camp could not accommodate detainees using wheelchairs and had no showers compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, resulting in the disabled being held in medical care rooms. The recreation area wasn’t available for several days, and after one yard was opened, it wasn’t enough space to provide required time for detainees. The law library, space to meet with attorneys and a visitation area did not open for weeks, resulting in detainees being deprived of legal resources and contact with family and friends, the report found. The problems persisted as ICE began transporting more detainees there from across the country, the GAO found. While built to house up to 5,000 immigrants for short-term stays, its population has averaged about half of that from October until April, according to ICE’s most recent data. Missing evidence and other problems Detainees held at the facility didn’t receive comprehensive health assessments, which meant that those with chronic conditions received substandard care, the report said. The contractor cleaned the dormitories weekly rather than daily as required, resulting in unsanitary conditions. Some guards offered detainees cookies if they would clean their own rooms. Acquisition Logistics didn’t reply to messages seeking comment. The GAO report says investigations into the January death of Geraldo Lunas Campos were undermined after “evidence associated with the incident was missing or destroyed.” It did not elaborate. Campos died after he was restrained by guards and an outside autopsy report ruled the death a homicide due to asphyxia. The contractor at the facility did not provide use-of-force and death reports to ICE as required, according to the new report. An investigation by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility into the death is on hold pending a criminal investigation by the FBI. On Jan. 14, Nicaraguan detainee Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, died of suicide after staff put him in a medical holding room instead of suicide-resistant cell and left him unattended for intervals longer than 15 minutes, the report said. Staff could not see into the room because the contractor had failed to install vision panels that had been requested months earlier, it found. “These are huge discrepancies in their failure to prevent suicides,” said Diaz family attorney Randall Kallinen, noting that the report strengthens a potential wrongful death claim he’s considering. “They are part of an entire laundry list of problems at Camp East Montana.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Senate passes $70B immigration enforcement bill without limits on Trump settlement fund

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed legislation to fund President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agencies early Friday morning, after weeks of delays and fierce backlash to an unrelated $1.776 billion settlement fund that threatened to derail the bill. Senators voted 52-47 for the $70 billion legislation to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years, through the end of Trump's term. The final vote came just before 5 a.m., after Republicans narrowly defeated multiple attempts by Democrats and Republicans to add language to the bill that would permanently ban Trump's settlement fund for political allies who believe they have been politically persecuted. Sponsor Message Republicans cleared a major hurdle overnight when they defeated an amendment proposed by one of their own members, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, that would have redirected payments from the settlement to members of law enforcement who were injured in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The amendments were a test of party unity that complicated what should have been an easy vote for Republicans who wanted to keep the focus on immigration enforcement in an election year. Instead, they spent almost a full day haggling among themselves over whether to block the settlement fund, even after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had said earlier this week that it would not go forward. "This would have been done several hours ago if we weren't having to deal with some of the issues around the fund," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said shortly before midnight. Thune himself has criticized the judgement fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns and has angered many of his GOP colleagues. But he has been pushing GOP senators for weeks to keep the bill focused on the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked since early this year, and to avoid adding new provisions that could complicate its passage in the House. Sponsor Message Still, a group of Republican senators pushed all day and into the night to block the settlement's payouts through legislation. That effort came after Trump raised new doubts about the settlement's future Wednesday afternoon — just after the Senate had voted to start debate on the immigration bill — when he told reporters that the settlement is "very important" and said "I don't know" whether it is dead or on hold. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., pauses for questions from reporters before votes on the immigration enforcement funding package, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 4, 2026. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., pauses for questions from reporters before votes on the immigration enforcement funding package, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 4, 2026. J. Scott Applewhite/AP "I'd have to ask the lawyers," he said. Senators push back multiple attempts to ban settlement fund The first vote on Thursday morning, a Democratic effort to ban the settlement, was held open for several hours as three senators, including Cassidy, decided whether to support it. The Democratic motion was narrowly defeated when Cassidy eventually voted against it and the two other GOP senators — Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, both of whom are up for reelection this year — voted for it. The Senate then rejected a second amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina that would also have banned the settlement fund but moved the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, guaranteeing its defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported it. Tillis said the fund is a political liability for the party. "If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?" Tillis said. "Otherwise, you're exposing every one of our members who are in cycle to having to deal with this between today and Election Day, and that makes no sense for something that the DOJ says they're not moving forward with." Cassidy's amendment to compensate the injured police officers was a pointed rebuke, as payouts from Trump's fund could have potentially gone to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Sponsor Message Despite Blanche's comments, Cassidy said that the fund is still part of an active settlement and "absolutely can be used." The Senate rejected several other Democratic efforts to try to block or limit the fund, including amendments to ban payments to Jan. 6 defendants who injured law enforcement officers. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are now "leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from Donald Trump's personal fixer. That is not accountability. That is a permission slip." ICE and Border Patrol money has been delayed for months Enactment of the roughly $70 billion bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump's term. Senate Republicans used a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it took weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security and Trump's ballroom that they eventually scrapped and the fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund. Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks. After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the department funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics. Sponsor Message Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support, but ICE and Border Patrol has remained without regular funding. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Mullin Says ICE Training Going Back to ‘Regular Standards’

Markwayne Mullin, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, told lawmakers on Wednesday that his agency would be increasing the training requirements for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to their previous level starting this summer. The scope of ICE training became a point of contention as the Trump administration hired thousands of new officers over the past year and apparently cut training requirements as a result of the hiring push. A trove of documents released by Senate Democrats earlier this year showed that training hours had dropped by roughly 40 percent as of February, to approximately 336 hours. As of last July, it had been 584 hours. On Wednesday, Mr. Mullin said that those training requirements were changing. “We had to rewrite the curriculum. All training starting July 1st will be back up to the regular standards,” he said to the House Homeland Security Committee. The issue of training for new ICE officers became a flashpoint as the agency became involved in major operations in cities like Minneapolis. The shootings of two American citizens in that city, one of whom was shot by an ICE agent, further inflamed those conversations. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Then, in February, Ryan Schwank, a former ICE attorney who worked at the training academy, publicly criticized the changes. “For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program,” Mr. Schwank said in February, at a forum held in Washington by congressional Democrats. “Cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program — classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority.” Agency officials pushed back and said that hours had in fact not been slashed. “Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive Fourth and Fifth Amendment comprehensive instruction,” the agency said at the time. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump's mass deportation campaign takes a toll on college students

For years, researchers and advocates have documented the barriers students from immigrant families face when pursuing higher education. But the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has introduced new challenges and fears, even for many immigrants who are legally in the United States. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Minnesota for our series Rethinking College. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: For years, researchers and advocates have documented the barriers students from immigrant families face in pursuing higher education. But the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign has introduced new challenges and new fears, even for many immigrants who are legally in the U.S. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports now from Minnesota, where federal authorities carried out a sweeping immigration enforcement operation earlier this year. It's part of our series Rethinking College. Fred de Sam Lazaro: As the spring semester wound to a close, the campus of Augsburg University bustled with students. For the small private school in Minneapolis, IT was a far cry from scenes in the Twin Cities just months earlier, when Operation Metro Surge brought thousands of federal agents to Minnesota, part of a massive immigration crackdown. Augsburg sits in the heart of the Cedar-Riverside and Minnesota's Somali population. The school reflects the community, with about 70 percent students of color. Many are immigrants. Paul Pribbenow has been Augsburg's president for 20 years. Paul Pribbenow, President, Augsburg University: Students who have lived through the experience here over the past several months with the Metro Surge, clearly, that trauma has affected them. I can see it in their faces. You can actually see it, especially here at the end of our semester, the weariness, the fatigue, just the stress. Fred de Sam Lazaro: Federal officials detained three Augsburg students, including one on campus in December. Woman: A man armed with a rifle standing outside of a residence hall. Fred de Sam Lazaro: The Department of Homeland Security called the student a -- quote -- "criminal illegal alien with multiple offenses." The "News Hour" independently confirmed an arrest for drunk and careless driving. Ultimately, courts ordered the release of all three Augsburg students, but the effect of the crackdown lingered, with all campus buildings remaining locked. Eva Skipwith is a biology major at Augsburg. Born in Ethiopia, she came to the United States at the age of 1. When ICE activity picked up over the winter, she started taking some classes online. Eva Skipwith, Student, Augsburg University: It's exhausting to have to be on guard all the time, to have to worry about whether or not you're going to be taken from the only home that. Especially students at Augsburg know, like, how much work you put in to get our education. And, like, you hear the whistles, and my thought is, like, oh, my God, all this work that I have put in, if I'm taken, that's gone. What am I left with? Fred de Sam Lazaro: Colleges throughout the Twin Cities area saw impacts from Operation Metro Surge. At Augsburg, requests for temporary leave double this semester. Elsewhere, new student enrollment declined and virtual learning climbed significantly. In a statement to the "News Hour," DHS said: "These students are only afraid because of fearmongering and lies being spread by agitators, sanctuary politicians and the media. Criminals are no longer able to hide in America's schools to avoid arrest." State Rep. Isaac Schultz (R-MN): I think that Metro Surge never needed to happen. Fred de Sam Lazaro: Isaac Schultz is a Republican in the Minnesota House of Representatives. State Rep. Isaac Schultz: Had, as an example, Minneapolis-St. Paul and more specifically the counties around them, had they been more cooperative early on, there would have been no need for Operation Metro Surge. Fred de Sam Lazaro: What were they not doing? State Rep. Isaac Schultz: So, they specifically adopted sanctuary policies which prevented communication and coordination with law enforcement entities at the Department of Homeland Security, with ICE. And because they didn't do that, it made it more difficult to do the job of immigration enforcement. Fred de Sam Lazaro: In recent years, multiple studies have documented the toll of immigration enforcement on college students, especially those from families with mixed immigration status. Researchers have found negative effects on students' ability to focus, their grades, and on enrollment. Corinne Kentor is with the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Corinne Kentor: If students are not feeling safe, if they are worried about their families constantly, that has a real impact on their personal well-being, even if they are not the primary subjects of immigration enforcement. Fred de Sam Lazaro: Miguel Perez Espinoza just received an associate's degree in accounting, taking online classes from Southern New Hampshire University. He was born and raised in the Twin Cities, but comes from a mixed-status family. The past several months, he says, have been trying. Miguel Perez Espinoza, Student, Southern New Hampshire University: He just got this collage of a mess where I'm just trying to keep everything together and trying to make sure my family's OK. I had to push off a lot of assignments to take care of them, make sure they're OK, make sure to see where they're at all times. Fred de Sam Lazaro: Perez Espinoza, a corporal in the Army National Guard, put a patrol cap on the dashboard of his father's car, hoping to lower the chance of an encounter with ICE. He also pulled money out of his savings to install cameras outside his parents' home. Miguel Perez Espinoza: I'm trying to balance my education while trying to balance their safety. It was terrifying. Corinne Kentor: Between 2000 and 2023, 84 percent of enrollment growth in U.S. colleges and universities has been driven by first-and second-generation immigrants. We're talking about a really significant population in higher education. And if that population is not able to continue to flourish in higher ed, then college is going to look very different. Fred de Sam Lazaro: In recent years, Kentor has tracked movement around policies that help undocumented students afford college. In 2001, Texas became the first state to offer in-state tuition to undocumented students. By 2024, half of all states adopted similar measures. But, since then, challenges to those policies have mounted. The Trump administration sued nine states, including Minnesota. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in March. State Rep. Isaac Schultz: Greetings to each of you. Fred de Sam Lazaro: Last year, Representative Isaac Schultz introduced legislation to bar students without legal status from qualifying for state financial aid. He says, next year, about $3 million will go to some 300 undocumented students. Will it really make that much difference, do you think, or is it the principle that you're fighting for? State Rep. Isaac Schultz: It's both principle and it's the actual idea, right? So for those students who have legal status, they are missing out on $50. That's $50 that is going to someone without legal status. Fred de Sam Lazaro: What do you say to many of these students who will tell you that their parents, whilst not documented, are taxpayers? State Rep. Isaac Schultz: Yes, they're taxpayers, for sure. But at the same time, there is no reason that we should have the same playing field for someone with legal status who is a citizen and has gone through just the basics of supporting the United States. Paul Pribbenow: We're only cutting off our own future. Fred de Sam Lazaro: Augsburg's Paul Pribbenow, who estimates the school is home to dozens of undocumented students, disagrees. Paul Pribbenow: Our first undocumented student who is now an attorney in the United States has gained his citizenship, is married, and is working in an immigrant law center here in the Twin Cities. And, for me, if that's the possibility for what these students are going to give back to this country, then it's worth both our personal institutional resources, but also the support of the state and the federal government to be able to support those students. Fred de Sam Lazaro: For his part, Miguel Perez Espinoza to get his bachelor's degree in the fall. He then hopes to go to the University of Minnesota for his master's. The last several months have only hardened his resolve to finish his education. Miguel Perez Espinoza: I want to be in a position in terms of education and finance where I could take care of my family without having to have that feeling or burdened with it. I love my family to death, and I will -- they sacrificed everything to be here to give me an education, and I will sacrifice what I can for them. Fred de Sam Lazaro: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Fred de Sam Lazaro in the Twin Cities. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump administration plan would allow for quick asylum rejections without interviews, internal documents show

The Trump administration is developing a plan that would allow U.S. immigration officials to quickly reject some asylum applications without interviewing the applicants, according to internal federal government documents obtained by CBS News. The Department of Homeland Security regulation described in the internal documents would be the latest effort by President Trump's White House to tighten access to the U.S. asylum system, which administration officials have claimed is plagued by systematic fraud. Under the regulation, officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a branch of DHS, would be empowered to reject asylum applications, without adhering to the traditional practice of interviewing the applicants, if they find the cases were filed a year after their arrival to the U.S. USCIS would place rejected applicants in deportation proceedings before the Justice Department's immigration court system, requiring them to plead their cases to remain in the country in an adversarial setting, the documents say. U.S. immigration law generally disqualifies foreigners from applying for asylum if they do so a year after entering the country. But that provision includes exceptions, such as cases involving a serious medical condition or poor legal counsel. Unaccompanied minors are also not subject to the deadline. The regulation outlined in the internal federal documents would allow USCIS officers to move forward with an asylum case and schedule an interview if they determine the applicants meet one of the exceptions for not filing their application within the 1-year deadline. But the regulation would nonetheless upend USCIS' longstanding policy of interviewing virtually all asylum applicants before making a decision on their claims, allowing for quick rejections of cases where the paper record suggests the applicants did not meet the 1-year deadline. symbol 00:00 02:00 Read More In a statement to CBS News, a USCIS spokesperson said the Trump administration is "considering multiple options" to address a backlog of over a million asylum claims "created by the Biden administration's dangerous open borders policies," including sending "deficient" applications to the immigration courts. "This would allow USCIS to avoid wasting time on asylum applications that it would otherwise refer to immigration proceedings and will allow illegal aliens to have their claims heard by a judge," the USCIS spokesperson added. Conchita Cruz, an immigration lawyer who runs an organization that assists asylum-seekers, expressed concern that the regulation would "wrongfully" place applicants in deportation proceedings without allowing them to explain why they may have filed their application after the 1-year deadline. Cruz, the co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, said there are "many reasons" why asylum-seekers may file their applications more than a year after entering the U.S., including because they have been living in the country with a temporary status, like a visa. "The government would be changing the rules on immigrants who have been navigating a complex immigration process, often for many years," she added. U.S. law allows most foreigners on American soil to request asylum, even if they enter the country illegally. But the threshold to win the actual legal protection of asylum is much higher, requiring applicants to show they're fleeing persecution on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, political views or membership in a social group. Those granted asylum are allowed to live in the U.S. permanently, while those whose cases are denied are supposed to be deported. In recent years, a backlog of millions of asylum cases has hindered the federal government's ability to adjudicate applications quickly, a logjam that Republican and Democratic administrations have said encourages economic migrants to use the system to stay and work in the U.S., even though they do not qualify for asylum. USCIS, which oversees asylum cases filed by immigrants in the U.S. legally or who are not facing deportation, had 1.5 million pending asylum applications as of last fall, government figures show. Meanwhile, the Justice Department's immigration courts, which handle deportation cases, had 3.3 million pending claims as of March, 2.3 million of them involving asylum requests. As part of its deportation crackdown, the Trump administration has adopted various measures to restrict asylum and aggressively pursue the deportation of asylum-seekers, mainly those allowed into the U.S. along the southern border under the Biden administration. The administration has brokered "safe third country" deportation agreements with multiple nations across the globe, including ones with questionable human rights records, to send asylum-seekers to countries that are not their own, with instructions to seek refuge there instead of in the U.S. Last year, officials also froze all asylum cases overseen by USCIS, after the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., was revealed to be an Afghan man who had been granted asylum. After several months, that pause was scaled back, but remains in place for cases filed by citizens of 39 countries listed on Mr. Trump's "travel ban" proclamation. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump’s latest immigration move clouds the path to green cards

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump’s administration announced last week that it would require green card seekers to apply from their home countries instead of in the U.S., immigration attorney Flavia Santos Lloyd’s phone began ringing off the hook with clients worried about the implications for them. Lloyd wasn’t sure what to tell them, but she knew the confusing new policy would slow down applications. “It has a chilling effect because we have some cases that we were going to proceed and I can tell already, we should wait and see what’s going on,” she said. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday that foreigners in the U.S. who want a green card will need to leave and apply in their home country, barring some unspecified exceptions. The announcement, which potentially affects hundreds of thousands of green card applicants a year, was the latest immigration policy unveiled by Trump’s Republican administration to stun and confound lawyers, advocates and immigrants. It’s also part of a pivot by the administration to target legal pathways to immigration, after focusing since last year mostly on migrants in the U.S. illegally. “This is simply an attempt to try to limit and scare people away from the legal immigration process,” immigration attorney Charles Kuck said, adding that he expected legal action against the change. “This is a scare tactic.” Related Stories Trump administration to force foreigners in the US to apply for a green card abroad Trump administration to force foreigners in the US to apply for a green card abroad The birthright citizenship case at the Supreme Court hits close to home for this immigrant mother The birthright citizenship case at the Supreme Court hits close to home for this immigrant mother Supreme Court to hear arguments over push to end legal protections for migrants from Haiti, Syria Supreme Court to hear arguments over push to end legal protections for migrants from Haiti, Syria As worried immigrants and their employers flood immigration law offices with questions, it’s unclear what the effect will be, what exceptions might be allowed and how the policy will play out on the ground. Some green card seekers were already facing questions about why they should be allowed to apply from the U.S. A confusing rollout for the new policy For more than half a century, foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete the process for permanent residence in the United States — including people married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and political asylum-seekers, among others. That appeared to change suddenly on Friday, when USCIS announced the shift on its website. “From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” the agency said. USCIS also issued a more detailed policy memo designed as guidance for its staffers who decide these cases. Immigration experts who were trying to decipher the news said the memo was more nuanced, leading to confusion over what the change actually entailed. In response to questions from The Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday the shift wouldn’t prevent anyone “who legitimately and properly” qualifies from obtaining a green card although it will result in some people having to apply overseas with the State Department. The department said the policy would have “no noticeable impact on highly qualified applicants and skilled professionals who have followed the law.” One immigration law firm, Boundless Immigration, in a blog post on its website stating its interpretation of the policy, said officers were being instructed to “apply existing discretionary standards more rigorously” but surmised that the policy doesn’t completely stop the adjustment of status process for “eligible applicants” depending on the category of visa they have. The company cited previous policy memos about citizenship acquisition that had not prompted harsher steps in practice. Immigration firms and advocates left guessing who’ll be impacted Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the guidance may be targeting people who overstayed their visas, such as the parent of a U.S. citizen who remained after a visa expired, an employee of a company who transferred to the U.S. or people in the country on visas specific to clergy and other religious workers. “It seems like maybe who they’re targeting is potentially those whose period of stay lapsed while they were here,” she said. Kevin Miner, a partner with the immigration law firm Fragomen, said he expected that people on employment-based visas, like H-1Bs, would be exempt. Known as dual-intent, these visas allow people on nonimmigrant visas in the U.S. to seek a green card. Those dual-intent visas were specifically mentioned in the memo as areas of possible exception. “Those probably are cases that will continue to precede business as usual and that we won’t see a significant impact,” said Miner, who said the announcement Friday took people by surprise. Matthew Soerens, the U.S. director of church mobilization for World Relief, an organization that helps resettle refugees in the U.S., said language in the memo referring to cases in which immigrants have to adjust their status in the U.S. gives the organization “hope” and “expectation” that the guidance doesn’t apply to refugees. Refugees are people who are fleeing their homeland who meet a specific set of criteria to be admitted to the U.S. after lengthy vetting. They are required to do that green card processing a year after arriving in the U.S. and can’t go home because of the risks they’d face there, Soerens said. Trump’s administration has slashed the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. this year and limited them to white South Africans. People who entered the country under humanitarian parole, which allows presidents to admit people for humanitarian reasons and which President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration expanded dramatically, could also be impacted, Soerens said. Many of those people might have already had family in the U.S. or they married a U.S. citizen — both of which potentially give them pathways to apply for a green card that could now be complicated. All of these nuances make it difficult to provide general legal advice to people, said Dalal-Dheini. “It’s going to be a very case by case specific thing,” she said. Immigrants facing questions about their applications, group says The American Immigration Lawyers Association said several people in green card interviews under the new guidance faced questions Tuesday that haven’t previously been asked of applicants. One person who was applying to get a green card based off their marriage to a U.S. citizen was asked why they applied to adjust their status in the U.S. instead of going back to their home country and applying at the embassy there. They were asked if there were any factors that would prevent them from applying back at their home country and if they still had family there. Another person was asked to file a form demonstrating why they should be allowed to apply from the U.S. and were told evidence should prove they wouldn’t be a financial burden or a “public charge” on the U.S. and could include their 2025 tax return, a letter from an employer stating their salary and bank statements. Lloyd, the immigration attorney, said she has sent emails to her corporate and noncorporate clients telling them that she is monitoring the situation and she will reach out to them as soon as she has more guidance and practical applications. She said she thinks the policy will deter some companies from pursuing green cards for their clients. “I don’t want everybody to panic,” she said. “My advice to them is wait and see.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

ICE ordered to ramp up cases against attorneys accused of filing false asylum claims

The Department of Homeland Security is directing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to craft new policies to crack down on immigration attorneys if they aid in filing fraudulent asylum claims. The move is the Trump administration’s latest effort to target asylum, the legal process by which those fleeing danger and persecution can seek protection in the United States. The DHS memo accuses immigration attorneys of “assert[ing] that virtually every illegal alien is going to be persecuted or tortured in his or her home country because of a protected characteristic like race or political opinion.” It tasks ICE with developing new fraud policies and would take “enforcement actions against immigration attorneys who file false asylum claims in an immigration court.” Attorneys are ethically obligated to provide accurate information in court proceedings and already could face disciplinary action if they fail to do so. Nonetheless, the press release cites the statute that establishes penalties for violations of document fraud. “Protection claims like asylum are intended to cover unique and narrow circumstances, but it is standard practice for immigration attorneys representing illegal aliens to assert that virtually every illegal alien is going to be persecuted or tortured in his or her home country. Historically, ICE has depended on the discipline of immigration judges and the enforcement of criminal fraud laws to deter this conduct, but ICE has its own tools,” James Percival, a general counsel for the department, said in a statement. “Now, thanks to this directive, ICE attorneys have greater authority to enforce the law and stop the abuse of our asylum system by illegal aliens and attorneys.” Heather Hogan, policy and practice counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the administration is “doubling down” on the incorrect assertion that immigration attorneys are coaching clients to provide false information in court. “The fraud that they’re going after, is not the fraud that’s happening,” Hogan said, noting that smuggling organizations may encourage migrants to seek asylum. “I think they’re conflating fraud and misrepresentation with cases that just don’t have a high likelihood of succeeding.” Hogan formerly worked as an asylum officer who reviewed cases, including many from Mexico and Central America, where applicants may be fleeing gangs or domestic violence. “They’re fleeing actual violence and actual serious harm, but it’s just that their claims don’t always neatly fit within the protected grounds under the U.S. asylum laws,” she said. The Trump administration has taken a number of actions to restrict asylum, with President Trump suspending access to the protection in his first term during the COVID pandemic and signing an executive order on the first day of his second term seeking to limit asylum. “It’s really clear from all of their different actions that they would really like to just shut down the asylum program altogether,” Hogan told The Hill. Updated at 4:54 p.m. EDT For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump’s immigration crackdown could cost up to $479bn in lost taxes over 10 years

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown could cause the US to potentially lose up to $479bn in lost tax revenue over the the next 10 years, with enforcement deterring undocumented workers from filing their taxes this year, according to tax experts. Tax advisers say major changes, including proposed data sharing with immigration enforcement, have made filing taxes risky for undocumented immigrants. Tax benefits for immigrant parents have also been removed, further removing incentive to file taxes at all. Every tax season keeps Daisy Schmidt busy with typical accounting tasks, from bookkeeping to helping clients prepare their returns. But with an ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown, Schmidt has spent much of her time trying to calm clients that were too nervous to file. Despite her best efforts, many refused to file this year. “Our target is the Latino community, and many people didn’t file taxes because of fear of ICE,” said Schmidt, a tax adviser. “They said: ‘If they can deport me, what am I filing taxes for?’” Schmidt said this tax season, she has lost up to 75% of her clients at Crece Latino, the tax service firm she owns in Springfield Virginia. Other tax advisers who work with Latino clients say they have also seen a drop in clients after changes to federal immigration policy. Last year, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made an agreement to share the names and addresses of undocumented immigrants with the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE. Though a federal judge paused the data-sharing agreement in November and later ruled that it violated federal law, many are still worried about having their information passed to ICE. Parents without legal status also became ineligible for the child tax credit in 2025, even if their children are US citizens, which typically amounts to thousands of dollars in savings. Immigrants who are not legally authorized to work in the US are still required to pay taxes, and a longstanding IRS policy assured them that their data would be protected. Though it is harder for the IRS to pursue undocumented workers who don’t pay their taxes, those who work with undocumented immigrants say they still pay their taxes because it shows a willingness to work within the system, which can help when applying for legal status. “The system relies heavily on this trust, because people can decide not to do it,” said Luisa Godinez-Puig, a senior research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Approximately 50% of undocumented immigrant households typically file income tax returns in the US. In 2022 alone, they paid an estimated $96.7bn, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Undocumented immigrants don’t qualify for most deductions or tax benefits, and as a result, can end up paying a higher percentage of their income than US citizens, Godinez-Puig added. “Historically, the IRS has been very, very good at keeping taxpayer information highly confidential, to make sure that taxpayers would feel confident in sharing such personal information with the system,” said Godinez-Puig. “To think that the IRS would share information with any agency would have been unthinkable a few years ago. So this is a huge, huge change to how the policy and then this trust was built between agencies, and that’s why this is a very large issue with grave consequences.” Experts believe that a drop in tax filings could cost the federal government billions of dollars in lost revenue. According to Yale’s Budget Lab, the losses could range from $147bn to $479bn over the next 10 years. At the same time, up to 2.7 million children who are US citizens or lawful permanent residents might lose access to the credit due to these policy changes. Though there is no official data on the effect this is having on federal revenue, the IRS estimates that a 1% decrease in voluntary tax compliance would lead to $46bn in lost federal tax revenue. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment. Edgar Villacorta, owner of Latin Tax in Maryland and Virginia, said that about 30% to 40% of his clients didn’t file taxes this year. “They see that it isn’t giving them any benefit,” he said, referring to the loss of the child tax credit, adding “there is so much news about that ICE-IRS agreement”. His only consolation is that his losses are not as big as what some of his peers are facing. “Other colleagues tell me that half of their clients didn’t come back.” The risk of being exposed to federal immigration enforcement has stoked fears among undocumented immigrants across the country. An Urban Institute’s survey found that one in four adults in immigrant families, documented and undocumented, are worried about deportations, and one in six adults reported personally seeing or knowing someone who was taken into ICE custody in 2025. “The government’s priority should be to ensure everyone feels safe when following the law and filing their taxes. And when they do file taxes, immigrants should be treated the same as other tax filers,” wrote Ben D’Avanzo and Sarah Krieger, senior strategist and senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, in a report. “The Trump administration should publicly commit to abiding by the court orders prohibiting data sharing of taxpayer information and end its attempt to use IRS or other federal data for immigration enforcement.” Immigrant advocacy groups assert that children are the ones most harmed by the change in the child tax credit. Proponents of the child tax credit emphasize it is an important tool for reducing poverty and helps families remain economically stable at a time of rising costs. Child poverty recently surged to an estimated 13% to 16% (roughly 10 million to 11.4 million children), a sharp increase from a record low of 5.2% in 2021. “It used to be the case that as long as the child was American and had a social security number, the parents could qualify, even if they both were undocumented,” said Godinez-Puig. “Because the point of this credit was to help American children … regardless of who the parents were.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Deported Despite DACA: Dreamers Face Uncertainty Under Trump

There had to have been a mistake, Martin Padilla recalled telling the immigration agents. An inspector in the oil and gas industry, he was about to fly to Sacramento for work when the agents pulled him aside at Corpus Christi International Airport in Texas last August. Stopped at the security X-ray scanner, he told them he had DACA status, referring to the Obama-era program designed to protect undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as young children. His DACA card, he said, was in his wallet. It didn’t matter. Within hours of the Aug. 5 encounter, Mr. Padilla had been detained. Days later, he was deported to his native Mexico, leaving behind his American wife, their three children and the family’s new home. Mr. Padilla, 35, is among about 500,000 people enrolled in DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which is supposed to shield them from deportation and allow them to work legally. And he is one of the dozens of DACA recipients who have been expelled from the country by the Trump administration. The swift effort to deport Mr. Padilla underscores the tenuous state of many immigration protections under President Trump as he seeks to deliver on his pledge to deport millions of people and remake the country’s immigration system. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The federal government has all but ended the resettlement of refugees. The system for weighing asylum claims has been brought to a near standstill. And the Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status for more than a million people from some of the world’s most troubled nations. Mr. Padilla’s lawyers challenged his deportation, arguing in a federal court filing that his due process rights had been violated. After seven months, Mr. Padilla was allowed to return to the United States. Image A border wall and a bridge in the background, with a column running through the center of the image. Mr. Padilla returned to the United States through the port of entry in Brownsville, Texas, after he was allowed back into the country.Credit...Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times “My focus is getting back to work and providing for my family,” he said in an interview. But Mr. Padilla is hardly out of jeopardy. There is an outstanding deportation order that was issued to his family when he was a child. The Department of Homeland Security said that order was a basis for his detention last year, even though DACA was intended to protect him. And the agency also cited two D.W.I.s over the last 14 years, which can be considered by immigration authorities even though neither led to a criminal conviction. With the Trump administration working to weaken a wide range of protections, DACA recipients are realizing that the program, born of bipartisan support for a generation of young undocumented immigrants, is no longer the reliable shield it seemed to be for most of the last two decades. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Padilla’s experience makes clear just how much has changed and just how uncertain the future may be for the half million people who currently have DACA. Since Mr. Trump took office last year, 650 DACA recipients have been taken into custody by ICE, and nearly 90 percent of the people arrested had previously been charged with or convicted of a U.S. crime, according to D.H.S. Lawyers contend the Trump administration is relying on minor infractions and decades-old deportation orders to justify detentions and removals of a protected group. Neither Mr. Padilla or his lawyer received an official explanation for his deportation, they said. “It seems so arbitrary that they decided to pick him up,” said his lawyer, Danielle Claffey. “The whole purpose of deferred action is to defer someone’s removal, even if they have a removal order.” Image A man standing near a table in a restaurant hugs a boy. A woman and another boy stand nearby. Mr. Padilla celebrating with his children after he was allowed to return to the United States. Credit...Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times In response to an inquiry from The New York Times, D.H.S. said Mr. Padilla was a “criminal,” citing two D.U.I. charges and a deportation order from 2003, when he was 12. Records show that a D.W.I. charge in 2012 was dismissed. A 2023 guilty plea for another D.W.I. was discharged by a judge without a conviction. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The case challenging his deportation never reached a hearing in court, Ms. Claffey said, because the Department of Homeland Security chose to resolve the matter by facilitating Mr. Padilla’s return. Created by the Obama administration in 2012, DACA was intended as a stopgap until Congress could pass legislation, known as the Dream Act, to provide legal status for a generation of young immigrants who were brought to the United States through no choice of their own. For many so-called Dreamers, the United States is the only home they’ve known. Former President Barack Obama described them as “Americans in every way but on paper.” DACA enabled them to obtain driver’s licenses, pay in-state college tuition and build careers. Many are now in their 30s. But the program has been legally vulnerable because it was established by executive action, not by Congress. Arguing that Mr. Obama had overstepped his authority, opponents have been challenging DACA in federal court since the program’s inception. Still, across the previous three presidential administrations, recipients were assured “deferred action,” meaning the government would not pursue their deportation. Editors’ Picks The Complicated Logistics of a Home Building Sprint This Mental Trick May Help You Get More Exercise Love Lessons From Ramy Youssef’s Dog SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In a letter to Senate Democrats in February, Kristi Noem, then the homeland security secretary, justified the arrest and deportation of DACA recipients by saying that the program “comes with no right or entitlement to remain in the United States indefinitely.” In a statement, D.H.S. said that any person covered by DACA “may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons including if they’ve committed a crime.” Last month, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the Justice Department and oversees immigration courts, ruled that DACA status doesn’t prevent recipients from being deported. The decision deepened the fear and uncertainty gripping Dreamers. Many were already facing delays in renewing their “deferred” status and accompanying employment authorization. Historically, these renewals, required every two years, have taken weeks to process. But monthslong waits have become common, and that is costing some recipients their livelihoods. Lawyers and advocacy groups report a surge of calls from panicked nurses, teachers and others forced out of jobs. Image A man shown from the torso down, from behind and facing a street looks out toward three women and a young child who are mingling. Mr. Padilla outside his home with his family after he was allowed back into the United States. They bought the home shortly before he was detained.Credit...Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times Yadira Valles, a nurse in Albuquerque awaiting her renewal, cared for patients recovering from brain and spinal surgeries — until her work permit expired a month ago. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “I left my unit short a nurse, not because I wanted to but because I was forced to,” she said. “Without help from my family, I couldn’t keep my home, pay utilities and buy groceries.” While a lapsed work permit can mean a career on hold and earnings lost, for DACA recipients like Mr. Padilla, the Trump administration’s approach meant sudden expulsion. In the early hours of Aug. 18, he stood on the tarmac at an airport in Harlingen, Texas, a deportation hub. Chained at the waist, wrists and ankles, he tried once again to plead his case. His DACA was current, he told the people transporting him, to no avail. “I was like, oh my God, I have been here all my life, I have a home, I have a U.S.-citizen wife and three U.S.-born kids,” he recalled thinking as he shuffled up the stairs to the plane. He landed in southeastern Mexico disoriented, a stranger in the country of his birth. His wife sent him money, and he flew north to Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, to be closer to his family. Mr. Padilla and his wife, Cynthia, have been married since 2015. But it was not until June 2024 that she started the paperwork to sponsor him for a green card, a process that can take years. As his lawyer worked to have him returned to the United States, Mr. Padilla found a job at an American-owned manufacturing plant. His wife locked up their house near Corpus Christi and moved in with relatives near McAllen. Relocating allowed her and their children, 10, 7 and 4, to cross the border on weekends to visit Mr. Padilla. Their youngest, a girl, cried every time she parted ways with her father. Mr. Padilla’s lawyer filed a complaint in federal court in December. Before the judge ruled, government lawyers agreed in February to admit Mr. Padilla back into the United States. A week later, an ICE official emailed Ms. Claffey, saying that Mr. Padilla would be detained on arrival. This led to several more weeks of limbo, until ICE agreed not to immediately detain him. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Image Two young boys lying in bed while their parents pray beside them. A little girl is standing in the foreground facing the bed. Mr. Padilla and his wife saying prayers with their children before tucking them in bed for the night.Credit...Gabriel V. Cárdenas for The New York Times On April 24, Mr. Padilla was admitted through the port of entry at Brownsville, Texas. When U.S. agents dropped him off at a bus stop, they wished Mr. Padilla good luck, he said. One reminded him to keep his DACA active. Mr. Padilla remembers thinking, “It was active.” With Mr. Padilla able to earn only a fraction of what he had been making before his deportation, his family relied first on savings, then on credit cards, to keep up mortgage and car payments during his absence. “If this had gone on another month or two, we would have been in serious trouble with our home,” he said. He and his wife are aware his immigration saga won’t be truly over until he has a green card. “All I want to do is fix his status,” Ms. Padilla said. “He is a great husband, father and worker.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump’s immigration policies chill Japanese shipyard investment

A Trump administration push to convince Japan to invest in U.S. shipyards is running into an unexpected hurdle — its own immigration policy. The Commerce Department has been leaning on Japanese diplomats and business executives to commit a slice of the $550 billion Tokyo has promised to invest in the U.S. to modernize America’s moribund shipbuilding industry, according to four people familiar with the discussions, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. In response to U.S. encouragement, Japanese business executives came to the U.S. last month to visit several port sites on the East Coast to assess their investment potential, according to two people familiar with their itinerary. Both were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss a sensitive diplomatic issue. “It was an exploratory trip to demonstrate that Japanese companies have an appetite to invest in the sector,” one of the people briefed on the trip said. Despite the U.S. pressure, Japanese funding for shipbuilding is likely “years away” due to a shortage of domestic workers with the skills necessary for shipbuilding, said that person said. Specifically, Japanese officials are concerned about the administration’s hostility to foreign labor — evident by its slashing of work permits and visas for foreign laborers. The Trump administration’s “stance toward immigration is at odds with the needs of a skilled labor force,” the person added. Japan’s wariness underscores how the administration’s aggressive anti-immigration policy, punctuated with violent enforcement actions in cities including Minnesota and Chicago and rollbacks in visas for skilled workers, is running head-on into his push for foreign investment, a major component of Trump’s tariff-lowering trade agreements with Japan as well as South Korea and the European Union. And it could undermine Trump’s vow to rejuvenate ailing domestic industrial sectors, including U.S. shipbuilding. In particular, an Immigration and Customs’ Enforcement raid on a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia in September — resulting in the detention and deportation of some 300 South Korean workers employed at the site — has unsettled Japanese companies considering possible U.S. investments that require imported skilled labor, the person said. “Japanese companies are paying very close attention and there is real concern,” said Joshua Walker, president of the New York-based nonprofit Japan Society who has close contacts with Japanese private sector representatives. “The broader ICE enforcement climate has definitely spooked firms that rely on sending highly skilled workers for major investments under the new U.S.–Japan trade framework and to the Japanese embassy and consulates, as well.” The Japanese embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. A Commerce Department spokesperson did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment. The Trump administration has pressed Japan as well as South Korea to make massive investments in U.S. shipbuilding, a key plank of the president’s campaign to boost industries that have withered in the face of stiff foreign competition and lack of investment. The shipyards in the United States currently build fewer than a dozen ships a year — heavily customized jobs for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard — while those in Asia can mass produce thousands of vessels annually, noted Gordon Shearer, an analyst at shipping industry consulting firm Poten & Partners. Trump issued an executive order last year dedicated to rebuilding the country’s maritime industries with measures including a “shipbuilding financial incentives program” and “regulatory relief” for U.S. and foreign investors willing to provide funding for the sector. The U.S. Trade Representative pitched in with a sharp increase in port fees for Chinese ships and cargo in October to offset Beijing’s current global dominance of the shipping sector. (USTR quickly reversed that plan after Beijing threatened to impose punitive fees on U.S. ships and cargo in response.) South Korea committed to invest $150 billion in American shipbuilding as part of a preliminary trade deal reached last October, much of which is expected to come from private companies. Japan’s investment pledges — promised as part of a deal Tokyo and Washington announced last summer lowering U.S. tariffs to 15 percent — have so far focused primarily on the energy sector. The U.S. shipbuilding sector is also wrestling with a looming labor crisis. Around 25 percent of the sector’s workers will reach retirement age by 2031, at a time when naval shipbuilding requirements alone will require an additional 250,000 skilled workers, John Phelan, a former Secretary of the Navy, said in January. And in the case of foreign shipbuilding projects, workers will need training to master the foreign technology and ship designs. Current immigration policies — including a sharp reduction in the number of H1-B visas designed for temporary highly skilled workers imposed in September and visa bans or restrictions for citizens of dozens of countries on national security grounds — limit countries’ ability to bring in their own citizens to manage and train U.S. workers. “Immigration restrictions hurt the ability to upskill laborers here in the United States,” said Arnav Rao, a transportation policy analyst at the centrist nonprofit think tank The Open Markets Institute. “If the administration continues to take this hardline approach where we won’t even allow workers to come in and train our people, then we don’t really have much hope of reviving our shipbuilding.” Watch: The Conversation Play Video38:03 Leon Panetta on Iran, Ukraine and the new global power struggle The White House has sent mixed messages over how open it is to bringing in foreign workers as it works to woo investment from abroad. After the Hyundai raid last fall, Trump posted on social media that he wanted international companies “to bring their people of expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people.” He also singled out shipbuilding, in particular, as one of the industrial products “we have to learn from others how to make, or, in many cases, relearn, because we used to be great at it, but not anymore.” After the Hyundai raid, the administration moved to placate Seoul’s concerns by forming a working group with South Korean officials on providing U.S. visas for Korean workers. However, seven months of negotiations have failed to produce a mutually acceptable visa category for South Koreans to work on projects created by the $350 billion that Seoul has committed in U.S. investments, said a person familiar with the post-Hyundai raid discussions and granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters. The ICE raid in Georgia “highlighted the tension between ‘America First’ immigration impulses and the reality that U.S. industrial revitalization hinges on foreign investment, talent, and expertise,” said Arius Derr, a spokesperson at the nonprofit Korean Economic Institute of America. “In order to support the billions of dollars of investment that Korea is bringing over here, there needs to be some sort of runway for these Korean workers to come over, get everything set up, and then most importantly, teach Americans how to use it.” The administration’s response to the visa issue, going forward, may determine whether it can regain the trust of governments in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, which send large numbers of their nationals to staff the start-up stages of investment projects. “Did the Georgia raid send a chill? My answer is ‘Is the Pope American?’ Of course it did,” said Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Arizona), whose district includes areas where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has invested billions to build new chip production fabs. “Obviously, if you need to blend an American workforce and a foreign workforce together, that did not send the right messages about foreign direct investment in the United States.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

10,000 rulings: The courts’ overwhelming rebuke of Trump’s ICE policies

Ten thousand losses. That’s the Trump administration’s track record in court as federal judges grapple with the way ICE agents have swept through major U.S. cities and detained thousands of people in support of President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda. More than 10,000 times, judges have said those detentions, typically carried out with no opportunity for detainees to plead their case, were illegal. That’s roughly 90 percent of all cases — a staggering rejection of a core piece of Trump’s immigration agenda. Trump’s unprecedented detention policy, which is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court, infuriated lower courts in ways no other modern issue has. It ruptured the relationship between the Justice Department and the judiciary; pitted the administration against itself; and upended innumerable lives — not just of the people swept up by immigration agents, but of their spouses and children, many of whom are U.S. citizens. POLITICO is tracking the tens of thousands of detention cases that have flooded the system since ICE adopted its detention policy last July. Today we are releasing a full database of those rulings, giving the public an opportunity to see under the hood of our reporting — which has documented the courts’ lopsided results, ICE’s tactics for defying judges’ orders and the rising tensions between the judiciary and the Trump administration. The trend is clear from every angle. The administration has lost nearly 10,400 of the cases that have been decided, and prevailed in about 1,200. While some judges have heard more cases than others, the overwhelming majority of judges — more than 425 — have reached the same conclusion. Even a majority of Trump-appointed judges have sided against the administration. Trump administration officials shrug off the one-sided rebuke from the courts, attributing their losses to “the left and their activist proxies on the judiciary” and predicting that they will prevail at the Supreme Court. “The law is not a popularity contest among judges,” a Justice Department spokesperson said. As ICE’s detention spree continued to ratchet up over the past 10 months, even the Trump-led Justice Department — tasked with defending the federal government in court — has at times told judges it cannot defend some of ICE’s actions. Many judges hearing these cases have run out of words to express their frustration with what they see as a wreckage of lives and of laws. “Beyond the reach of ordinary legal description,” one judge wrote. “It is an assault on the constitutional order.” ‘This isn’t how things are supposed to work in America’ These more than 10,000 cases include a nursing mother who was detained despite active refugee status and another mother separated from her one-year-old child and released from custody only when her son landed in the hospital. They include parents of U.S. military servicemembers, trafficking victims or witnesses, a 5-year-old boy detained by ICE on his way home from school. Judges who have handled dozens of detention cases have described deepening frustration with ICE’s relentless detention drive and its defiance of court orders. “This isn’t how things are supposed to work in America,” wrote U.S. District Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointee based in New York, in the case of a man whose lawful status was revoked after ICE arrested him. “Unquestionably, the laws of human decency condemn such villainy.” One judge reached back to Greek myth after ruling against the administration 90 times, invoking Heracles’ effort to slay “a serpent whose heads regenerated twofold for each head that was lopped off.” Another, also borrowing from antiquity, compared it to Sisyphus’ endless march to push a boulder uphill. Others have been alarmed by the tactics ICE has used to effectuate its mass detention mandate: arresting parents dropping off school kids, positioning agents in courthouses to make arrests after immigration hearings, detaining people at ICE offices after routine check-ins, grabbing people once promised protection from enforcement through programs like DACA, and executing after-the-fact warrants that judges say have been used to paper over unjustified arrests. In rare but extreme cases, the Trump administration has acknowledged deporting people in violation of court orders. The flood of cases has overwhelmed both courts and the Justice Department, which had to call up inexperienced attorneys from other parts of the federal government to stand in for under-staffed U.S. attorney’s offices. And they have sometimes found themselves in an impossible position when ICE refuses to comply with judges’ orders, even ghosting its own lawyers in the process. “Despite hundreds of similar rulings in this and other courts resoundingly in favor of the ICE-detainee petitioners, ICE continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary,” said U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III, a George H.W. Bush appointee from Pennsylvania. An unprecedented policy Presidents’ signature initiatives often end up in court. But this flood of adverse rulings is unique — a never-before-seen reaction to a never-before-seen policy. Federal law requires the detention of “applicants for admission” to the U.S. who are “seeking admission” to the country. Every previous administration has interpreted the provision to apply primarily to people who were apprehended at the border — until last year. In a July 8, 2025 memo, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said that millions of immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for years would now be treated as “seeking admission” to the country, subjecting them to mandatory detention without the opportunity for bond. Watch: The Conversation Play Video38:03 Leon Panetta on Iran, Ukraine and the new global power struggle Until Lyons’ memo, millions fewer people were treated as eligible for detention, and people who were detained could still be released on bond, at the discretion of immigration judges who work for the executive branch. But the administration’s policy shift pushed millions of people into a framework that denies bond hearings from the outset. Courts were then flooded with lawsuits from individual detainees, seeking bond hearings or release based on their individual circumstances — and that’s why this policy has produced such an enormous volume of court cases. ICE has also either defied or tried to circumvent many of those rulings — for example, moving detainees to a new state, where they’ll need to bring a new case with a new lawyer; or providing hearings that judges found to be insufficient. That gamesmanship creates even more litigation, and has been a major driver of courts’ mounting frustration with the administration. Though the policy shift on mandatory detentions has driven the nationwide surge in emergency lawsuits, it’s not the only category of cases that has led to judicial pushback. POLITICO’s database also includes thousands of cases in which judges concluded that ICE had violated its own rules, deprived people of due process or held people for unconstitutionally lengthy periods without a realistic prospect of actually deporting them. Trump administration officials have said the novel ICE detention policy is an antidote to years of what they’ve called “catch-and-release” border policies by the Biden administration — and that it’s working. ICE often points to the number of voluntary departures from the country, and the steep drop in border crossings, as a sign of the success of its deportation agenda. Most Read Illustration collage of Donald Trump walking onto an unrolling red carpet patterned with the Chinese flag. How the Trump-Xi meeting became ‘the shrinking summit’ Michigan Senate hopeful El-Sayed calls himself a ‘physician’ but has little history treating patients 10,000 rulings: The courts’ overwhelming rebuke of Trump’s ICE policies Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asks public to back judicial independence As Republicans carve up Black districts, Democrats pivot to a new midterm message President Donald Trump and Kristi Noem tour the detention camp billed as Alligator Alcatraz. President Donald Trump and Kristi Noem, then his Homeland Security Secretary, tour the detention camp billed by the state of Florida as Alligator Alcatraz, on July 1, 2025. | Doug Mills/The New York Times via Redux Pictures The White House, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security declined to answer specific questions for this story. They leveled sweeping criticism at the judges who have ruled against them — DHS called them “judicial activists” — and predicted they would ultimately win at the Supreme Court. Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassare, asked about the more than 10,000 rulings against the administration, replied: “That’s great, now the American people can see how judges are putting personal policy preferences ahead of proper interpretations of the law.” The Department of Homeland Security attributed the spike in lawsuits filed by ICE detainees to the rulings themselves, saying the judges’ decisions incentivized others to rush to court to seek release. “The law clearly requires detention of aliens pending their removal from the United States,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. “We are confident the Trump Administration’s view of the law will be vindicated on appeal in the Supreme Court.” Heading toward SCOTUS The administration’s predictions that ICE’s detention policy would be vindicated on appeal has met mixed results. Two federal appeals courts — the 5th Circuit and 8th Circuit — have ruled in favor of the administration’s position. Those courts cover parts of the country, including Texas and Minnesota, where enforcement efforts have been particularly aggressive. Three others — the New York-based 2nd Circuit, Atlanta-based 11th Circuit and Cincinnati-based 6th-Circuit — have ruled against the administration. Another panel in the 7th Circuit deadlocked. More appellate rulings are imminent. The division among appeals courts points toward an ultimate resolution by the Supreme Court. District court judges are obligated to follow the rulings of their respective circuit courts, so some judges, particularly in Texas and Minnesota, who had been ordering bond hearings or outright release of ICE detainees have now had their hands tied. Other judges in those states have found workarounds to continue rejecting mandatory detention on other constitutional due process grounds. The 6th Circuit endorsed that approach in a ruling this week. As the issue works its way up the ladder of the judicial system, lower-court judges will have less and less power over the outcome, and the proceedings will become more focused on legal arguments than individual circumstances. But the human experiences that make up these more than 10,000 cases have clearly affected any number of judges. “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency,” U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, a Clinton appointee based in Texas, wrote in a three-page ruling ordering the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. “And the rule of law be damned.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Democrats express ‘grave concerns’ over secretive ICE deportation flights

A group of 40 House Democrats have described “grave concerns” over the Trump administration’s secretive program of deportation flights and demanded the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) address allegations of mistreatment and inhumane conditions on ICE charter jets. A collage of a chain-link fence overlaying several images. In one panel a hand holds a phone displaying repeated call log entries labeled “Call failed.” In multiple panels, maps are shown with location markers and a plane's path connects them with dotted lines. In the lower right, a group of people, handcuffed, descend airplane stairs in a single-file line. Plane to purgatory: how Trump’s deportation program shuttles immigrants into lawless limbo Read more In a letter shared with the Guardian and addressed to the FAA administrator, Bryan Bedford, the lawmakers describe the “urgent need for transparency” over ICE’s expanded use of commercial airliners to transfer detained immigrants and its “inappropriate and dangerous” efforts to shield these flights from public scrutiny. “Credible reports indicate that individuals have been placed on flights without notice to counsel or family members, effectively disappearing from public view when flights are inappropriately shielded from tracking systems,” the letter states. “Families are left searching for their loved ones, and attorneys are denied meaningful opportunities to intervene, raising serious due process concerns.” The letter references an investigation by the Guardian, based on leaked flight data, which revealed the Trump administration transported detained immigrants in ways that routinely violated their constitutional rights. The reporting also identified allegations of abuse and rights violations at a private detention center in Alexandria, Louisiana, a central node in the administration’s deportation program. The Trump administration’s hardline immigration agenda saw a surge in the number of ICE flights during 2025, according to monitoring by human rights groups that tracked an 84% increase from 2024. “Concerningly, information regarding these [ICE] flights is nearly impossible to find, which undermines congressional oversight and prevents the public from understanding the scope and conditions of these flights,” the letter states. The Trump administration has previously described claims of “hidden” or “weaponized” transfer and deportation flights as “categorically false” and argued its detention centers have “higher standards than most US prisons”. The lawmakers ask the FAA to provide a detailed report of “all ICE air operations” since Trump was sworn into office, including flight origin and destination data as well as how many passengers were held onboard each flight. It addresses reporting by the Associated Press, which revealed how dozens of charter jets used for deportation flights were granted unusual permission by the FAA to block certain data, including tail numbers, from public flight tracking sites – making it harder to monitor ICE air operations in public. “This transparency is important for the American people to understand what is happening every single day because there are so many violations of due process and legal rights happening that if people knew about them they would find it deeply problematic,” said the New Jersey congressman Rob Menendez, the letter’s lead author. “We want people to understand what is happening on their dime.” The signatories also include the Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who authored a bill earlier this year aiming to block airline operators from hiding their tracking data while carrying out federal government services, as well as co-author Illinois congresswoman Delia Ramirez and New York congressman Jerry Nadler, the ranking member on the House judiciary committee. The letter also calls on the FAA to provide detailed information on how the agency assesses humanitarian conditions on ICE flights, including the controversial use of full body restraints during deportation flights. The lawmakers ask the FAA how restraining passengers in this manner affects evacuation and emergency procedures onboard and how ICE officers and flight attendants are trained to handle such scenarios. The Trump administration has previously described its use of restraints on ICE flights as “long-standing, standard ICE protocol” designed to “ensure the safety and well being of both detainees and the officers/ agents accompanying them” and argued the practices are “fully in line with established legal standards”. Menendez, who sits on the influential energy and commerce committee, said he expected representatives from airline companies working with ICE as well as private companies operating detention centers to face greater pressure to testify before Congress should Democrats win back control of the House following the midterm elections later this year. “We are putting pressure on now. But when we have the majority and the gavels there is so much more work and oversight that we will be able to do to demand and get accountability for the American people so all options will be on the table,” Menendez said. “People who think they can do this [immigration detention and transfer] work without there being any consequence are wrong.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Democrats express ‘grave concerns’ over secretive ICE deportation flights

A group of 40 House Democrats have described “grave concerns” over the Trump administration’s secretive program of deportation flights and demanded the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) address allegations of mistreatment and inhumane conditions on ICE charter jets. A collage of a chain-link fence overlaying several images. In one panel a hand holds a phone displaying repeated call log entries labeled “Call failed.” In multiple panels, maps are shown with location markers and a plane's path connects them with dotted lines. In the lower right, a group of people, handcuffed, descend airplane stairs in a single-file line. Plane to purgatory: how Trump’s deportation program shuttles immigrants into lawless limbo Read more In a letter shared with the Guardian and addressed to the FAA administrator, Bryan Bedford, the lawmakers describe the “urgent need for transparency” over ICE’s expanded use of commercial airliners to transfer detained immigrants and its “inappropriate and dangerous” efforts to shield these flights from public scrutiny. “Credible reports indicate that individuals have been placed on flights without notice to counsel or family members, effectively disappearing from public view when flights are inappropriately shielded from tracking systems,” the letter states. “Families are left searching for their loved ones, and attorneys are denied meaningful opportunities to intervene, raising serious due process concerns.” The letter references an investigation by the Guardian, based on leaked flight data, which revealed the Trump administration transported detained immigrants in ways that routinely violated their constitutional rights. The reporting also identified allegations of abuse and rights violations at a private detention center in Alexandria, Louisiana, a central node in the administration’s deportation program. The Trump administration’s hardline immigration agenda saw a surge in the number of ICE flights during 2025, according to monitoring by human rights groups that tracked an 84% increase from 2024. “Concerningly, information regarding these [ICE] flights is nearly impossible to find, which undermines congressional oversight and prevents the public from understanding the scope and conditions of these flights,” the letter states. The Trump administration has previously described claims of “hidden” or “weaponized” transfer and deportation flights as “categorically false” and argued its detention centers have “higher standards than most US prisons”. The lawmakers ask the FAA to provide a detailed report of “all ICE air operations” since Trump was sworn into office, including flight origin and destination data as well as how many passengers were held onboard each flight. It addresses reporting by the Associated Press, which revealed how dozens of charter jets used for deportation flights were granted unusual permission by the FAA to block certain data, including tail numbers, from public flight tracking sites – making it harder to monitor ICE air operations in public. “This transparency is important for the American people to understand what is happening every single day because there are so many violations of due process and legal rights happening that if people knew about them they would find it deeply problematic,” said the New Jersey congressman Rob Menendez, the letter’s lead author. “We want people to understand what is happening on their dime.” The signatories also include the Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who authored a bill earlier this year aiming to block airline operators from hiding their tracking data while carrying out federal government services, as well as co-author Illinois congresswoman Delia Ramirez and New York congressman Jerry Nadler, the ranking member on the House judiciary committee. The letter also calls on the FAA to provide detailed information on how the agency assesses humanitarian conditions on ICE flights, including the controversial use of full body restraints during deportation flights. The lawmakers ask the FAA how restraining passengers in this manner affects evacuation and emergency procedures onboard and how ICE officers and flight attendants are trained to handle such scenarios. The Trump administration has previously described its use of restraints on ICE flights as “long-standing, standard ICE protocol” designed to “ensure the safety and well being of both detainees and the officers/ agents accompanying them” and argued the practices are “fully in line with established legal standards”. Menendez, who sits on the influential energy and commerce committee, said he expected representatives from airline companies working with ICE as well as private companies operating detention centers to face greater pressure to testify before Congress should Democrats win back control of the House following the midterm elections later this year. “We are putting pressure on now. But when we have the majority and the gavels there is so much more work and oversight that we will be able to do to demand and get accountability for the American people so all options will be on the table,” Menendez said. “People who think they can do this [immigration detention and transfer] work without there being any consequence are wrong.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.