Trump’s immigration approach is gumming up the courts, frustrating his Justice Department and judges

The Justice Department and federal courts are struggling to keep up with the exponential increase in federal court cases of immigrants in custody who are challenging their detentions – another result of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies across the country. The cases, in which a person can challenge detention in the jurisdiction where they are physically held, through what’s called a habeas corpus petition, have skyrocketed in Minneapolis and Texas over the past three weeks, several attorneys responding to the surge say and court records show. “There has been a shift. It’s happened all so fast,” said Jacqueline Watson, an attorney in Austin, Texas, and board member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Related live story A CNN Town Hall in Minneapolis on January 28, 2026. Rep. Omar attacked in Minnesota as Trump says he wants to de-escalate state tensions The increase in the habeas cases in federal court has exposed how the justice system and the Trump administration are straining to respond to the White House and Department of Homeland Security’s escalation of immigration arrests. The situation has become especially acute this month with the Operation Metro Surge campaign in Minnesota, where the Trump administration has sent more than 3,000 Homeland Security border and immigration officers to the Twin Cities, and as immigrants arrested in Minnesota and elsewhere are being moved to federal detention facilities near the US-Mexico border. “I’ve seen people (in court representing DOJ) I’ve never heard of. The cases are just getting sent to whatever attorneys can handle the workload within the district,” Watson said of the prosecutors now being tasked to respond to immigration detention challenges in the Western District of Texas. “The volume slows down already scarce court resources.” At least one US attorney in a district on the US-Mexico border has raised the possibility that the Justice Department, which must respond to the federal court cases individually, may need to discuss changes in approach at the Department of Homeland Security, which takes immigrants into custody, according to internal DOJ discussions described to CNN. Since January 1, more than 400 detainees have filed habeas petitions in the federal court in Minnesota, often seeking bond hearings or to be released, according to the court’s public docket. There were just over 125 habeas petitions in the state during all of last year. Federal courts near the border have seen similar increases. In December, US attorneys from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi told an appeals court that their prosecutors were struggling to field responses to immigrants’ detention challenges. “To respond to this wave of habeas petitions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has been forced to shift its already limited resources from other pressing and important priorities,” Justin Simmons, the Trump-appointed US Attorney for the Western District of Texas, wrote to the Fifth Circuit, describing how he’s moved civil and criminal attorneys in his office to full-time habeas case duty. Homeland Security officials are far more likely to make arrests and keep a person who has no criminal history in detention under the Trump administration. And a DHS policy change last summer now allows far fewer detainees to be eligible for bond hearings in immigration courts, which exist within the Justice Department and outside the federal court system. As a result, people in custody are now more likely to file an emergency petition with the federal district court where they are being held. The judges then hear from the Justice Department and from the immigrant’s lawyer to determine if the person should be released or receive a bond hearing, with proceedings and responses needing to happen within days. Last week, detainees filed nearly 180 new habeas petitions in the Western District, according to court records. And the week before, 125 new habeas petitions were filed in the court, Simmons’ office announced in a press release. US Attorneys’ offices with major increases of immigrants in DHS detention have been pushing for additional prosecutors as well, but lawyers alone may not be enough, according to a source familiar with the discussions at the Justice Department. Justice Department spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment this week on the increase in immigration detention cases in the federal justice system. DOJ has, however, called for more attorneys from other midwestern US attorneys offices to go to Minnesota during the immigration arrest surge, CNN has reported. A frustrated judge A federal judge on Monday called out the Trump administration for not being prepared for the onslaught of new habeas petitions. The administration, wrote chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, “decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.” “The scale we’re talking about is not what we’ve ever seen before. And it’s just the pure amount of enforcement going on,” My Khanh Ngo, an attorney with the ACLU who is working on dozens of habeas cases for people in custody. On Monday, Schiltz noted how line prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Office in the Twin Cities have struggled to respond on the Justice Department’s behalf. The US Attorney’s Office has “struggled mightily to ensure that respondents comply with court orders despite the fact that (the Trump administration) have failed to provide them with adequate resources,” Schiltz wrote in a court order in the case of a man from Ecuador who had come to the US as a child nearly 30 years ago. Patrick Schiltz serves as the chief United States district judge of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota. Patrick Schiltz serves as the chief United States district judge of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota. US District Court for the District of Minnesota The man was detained and had been in ICE custody since early January, and Schiltz decided he should have a bond hearing or be released. But neither had happened for three weeks. “The Court’s patience is at an end,” Schiltz said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

'Two too many.' ICE raids drive wedge in 2026 battleground races

President Donald Trump's stern nationwide campaign against illegal immigration has reached boiling temperatures that could scald Republicans in battleground states and districts ahead of the 2026 midterms. Outrage over immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota and elsewhere had been building among Democrats and progressives for months, but the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti this month have further exposed the country's raw nerves. Surveys show a large share of Americans are uncomfortable with the Trump administration's approach to deportation, such as a Jan. 13 poll by Quinnipiac University that found 57% of voters disapprove of the way Immigration and Customs Enforcement is enforcing immigration laws, versus 40% who approve. That discontent is likely to continue spilling over this week, whether in Congress or across the nation, as the administration reportedly reconfigures tactics and messaging amid a public backlash. After top administration officials initially defended Pretti's killing by alleging − in apparent contrast to what video of his shooting shows − that the victim was a "would-be assassin" who "committed an act of domestic terrorism," White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a Jan. 26 press conference that no one in the administration, including the president, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets. Wary Republican lawmakers, candidates and other figures had already begun mapping the fallout by taking a noticeable tone shift, either calling for investigations or suggesting the White House back off. "Escalating the rhetoric doesn't help and it actually loses credibility," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said during a Jan. 25 episode of his podcast, "The Verdict" a day after Pretti's shooting. "And so, I would encourage the administration to be more measured, to recognize the tragedy and to say, 'we don't want anyone's lives to be lost.'" Others have asserted that the pair of killings is too much to withstand, however. "I cannot support the national Republicans' stated retribution on the citizens of our state nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so," Chris Madel, a Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota, said in a Jan. 26 video message posted on X, where he announced dropping out of the campaign for the GOP nomination. Get the Susan Page newsletter in your inbox. Get the latest story from Susan Page right in your inbox. Delivery: Varies Your Email Madel, a trial attorney who represented the immigration officer who fatally shot Good on Jan. 7, said ICE's efforts have expanded far beyond the agency's original focus. He said it has caused U.S. citizens, "particularly those of color," to live in fear and made it impossible for a Republican contender to win in Minnesota. "Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota has been an unmitigated disaster," he said. As the on-street clashes intensify, Republican candidates in toss-up contests are now being watched for how they are teetering on the issue. But strategists say not to expect most Republicans to back down in defending the president's biggest campaign promise, even as some conservatives share their misgivings publicly about some aggressive tactics and fatal outcomes. John Feehery, a former top Republican congressional aide turned GOP strategist, told USA TODAY he doesn't expect a significant herd of conservatives to break with Trump, but it will become a political disaster in the fall if the White House doesn't get a better handle on these enforcement operations. "There's an element you're seeing where Republicans acknowledge we need to be smarter about this," he said. "Then there are the personal reactions, you know, people don't want to see liberal protesters get gunned down and they don't like it. I don't blame them. I don't like it either." 'Two too many': Minnesota GOP contenders slam Democratic leaders Federal agents hold a person down as immigration enforcement continues after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 during an immigration raid, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Jan. 21, 2026. Other Republicans running for office in the Land of 10,000 Lakes were steadfast in supporting the president's massive deportation effort, even as Trump was beginning to pivot. They argue that rather than encouraging demonstrators or blaming the Trump administration for flooding areas with ICE agents, state and local officials should cooperate with the president in apprehending those living in the U.S. illegally to avoid further violence. In a Jan. 24 message hours after Pretti's shooting, former sportscaster Michele Tafoya, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota, encouraged people to "stay away from the affected areas, and wait for the facts." She pointed out that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were both in office in 2020 when clashes occurred amid protests against the murder of George Floyd. "We can never let that happen again," Tafoya said. David Hann, a former Minnesota Republican Party chairman, who is also running in the Aug. 11 GOP Senate primary, said the pair of killings was "two too many." While he stated that "Minnesotans are not political pawns," he reiterated that calming the waters is mainly a responsibility of Democratic leaders in the state rather than the Trump administration. Trump's supporters in Minnesota are pointing to a potential reset since the president announced he is dispatching Tom Homan, the administration's so-called border czar, to oversee operations in Minnesota following the second fatal shooting. "It's certainly a great opportunity for Walz, Frey, and the rest to reset their stance and begin taking federal authority seriously. We'll see," Walter Hudson, a GOP Minnesota legislator, who has defended the crackdown, said in a Jan. 26 post on X. By the late afternoon, Walz and his team had announced the governor had spoken with Trump after months of bitter verbal jabs, saying the president would consider reducing the number of immigration agents in the state. The governor's office said they were also assured Minnesota investigators can independently probe the Pretti shooting. Collins staying mostly quiet as ICE operations swarm Maine US Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, stands alongside US President Donald Trump as he signs bills intended to lower prescription drug prices during a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, October 10, 2018. The administration's next steps will be critical, GOP strategists say, especially as voters weigh the responses by Republicans in battleground areas where ICE deployments are taking place. In the wake of Good's death, the administration launched another immigration enforcement operation in Maine, where the parties are locked in a battle over the Senate seat currently held by five-term GOP incumbent Susan Collins, a moderate known for occasionally breaking with Trump. Dubbed "Operation Catch of the Day," the administration did not announce how many ICE agents were sent to the Pine Tree State, nor did it outline where its operations would be focused or how long the mission would last. "The brave men and women of ICE have already arrested more than 200 illegal aliens in Maine in the last five days," the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday afternoon. While the department says it is gathering "the worst of the worst," immigrant advocates in Maine say most of those arrested are in legal immigration processes and have no criminal record, and that many have been racially profiled and subjected to inhumane conditions in detention. The Collins campaign did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment and the senator hasn't issued a new statement since the second shooting in Minnesota. In the wake of Good's death, Collins issued a statement echoing some of the administration's talking points, saying people who are protesting, "should be careful not to interfere with law enforcement efforts while doing so." But the agency's deployment into Maine has ignited a furious response from the top two Democrats seeking to boot Collins from office, which may determine the balance of the Senate later this year. "It's simple -- Congress needs to stand up today and tell this president that Kristi Noem must go and ICE must be withdrawn," said Gov. Janet Mills, a Trump foil who was recruited to run by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, in a Jan. 26 interview on MS Now's (formerly MSNBC) Morning Joe. She has criticized Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, for not taking part in the Democrat-led effort to withhold ICE funding unless new safeguards are added to its tactics. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, a more populist-aligned Democratic contender supported by grassroots progressives, said Americans have "the right and the duty to resist ICE." "People need to get off the couch, join groups and take part," he said in an MS Now interview over the weekend. Republicans defend ICE, Trump's actions but cracks show on gun rights Attendees wearing 'MAGA' caps wait ahead of a campaign rally featuring then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S., November 4, 2024. Immigration enforcement remains one of Trump's best issues on the political right, but there are noticeable disagreements among the MAGA coalition, including concerns expressed by gun rights groups who expressed dismay that administration officials justified Pretti's shooting because he was carrying a legal firearm at the time of his death. Noem said at a news conference hours after the shooting that it is a "violent riot when you have someone showing up with weapons," a notion that was denounced by conservative lawmakers and gun rights activists. In a Jan. 26 statement, former Vice President Mike Pence said the administration's focus now should be to bring together law enforcement at every level to address the community's concerns, "even while ensuring that dangerous illegal aliens are apprehended" in Minnesota. "The American people deserve to have safe streets, our laws enforced and our constitutional rights of freedom of speech, peaceable assembly and the right to keep and bear arms respected and preserved all at the same time," Pence said. Feehery, the GOP strategist, said Republicans by and large still support many of the enforcement activities, but that Trump will have to be more disciplined and avoid further escalation to help protect Republican candidates in swing areas. In the Quinnipiac survey, for instance, 84% of Republican voters said they approve of the way ICE is enforcing the country's immigration laws. That is the reverse of how Democrats see things, the poll shows, with 94% of Democrats and 64% of independent voters disapproving. "Immigration is one of his biggest promises and it's one of his greatest accomplishments," Feehery said. "Now it's becoming a political liability." Pretti's death has already ignited the liberal activists who are pressuring congressional Democrats, demanding they refuse to support any further ICE funding. More: ICE and Border Patrol. What makes the immigration agencies different? Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a liberal-leaning immigration reform group, said tepid Republican opposition isn't good enough, and that means Trump's opposition in Washington must be more courageous. "We are seeing what an enforcement-only, violent approach looks like in real time and Americans are rejecting that," she said. "It is absolutely reasonable for Democrats to demand that not one more penny goes to ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection." But GOP contenders are eager for Democrats in swing districts to embrace what grassroots progressives want, especially if stripping away the agency's funding leads to a budget standoff resulting in another government shutdown. Officials with the National Republican Congressional Committee, which serves as the House GOP's political arm, told USA TODAY they have been focusing on liberal incumbents and challengers in more than a dozen areas for weeks. Many have publicly criticized ICE and questioned the agency's mission, which the NRCC sees as a liability for those Democrats in competitive races. Among the top targets in 2026 will be Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman, of Ohio. After the Republican-controlled state legislature's successful redistricting effort last year, Landsman's reelection hopes became more vulnerable, according to the Cook Political Report, which forecasts races. The 49-year-old incumbent, who represents much of Cincinnati's inner suburbs, said ICE agents committed "murder" against Good and that Noem should "step down" as a result. "The radical 'abolish ICE' crusade from far-left Democrats seemed like a relic of the past, but it’s the brand-new litmus test for Democrats who are barely hanging on and begging on their knees to get approval from their socialist base," Mike Marinella, an NRCC spokesman, told USA TODAY. "The full embrace of their deeply unpopular, lunatic policies exposes the brain rot that has taken over the Democrat Party." For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

White House shows first signs of retreat as backlash grows over Minnesota killing

President Donald Trump on Monday showed his first signs of retreat since surging federal immigration agents in Minnesota late last year — replacing the leader of the crackdown on the ground and signaling new willingness to cooperate with the state’s Democratic elected officials. But the moves — which came amid an effort to contain the backlash over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and Trump officials’ early efforts to falsely brand the ICU nurse as a “domestic terrorist” — didn’t stop the administration from continuing to try to shift blame, sparking questions about how much would change on the ground. The first test could come Tuesday. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino and some of his agents are now expected to leave the city as soon as then, three sources familiar with the discussions told CNN, after Trump dispatched border czar Tom Homan to run the on-the-ground enforcement operation that has roiled Minneapolis. Sidelining Bovino could herald a move away from the heavy-handed approach that he had encouraged. Customs and Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino stands with federal officers at a gas station January 23. Customs and Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino stands with federal officers at a gas station January 23. Katie G. Nelson/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/AP The leadership change came as a relief to some at the Department of Homeland Security, who view Homan as a more experienced hand given his years in federal law enforcement. It also won praise from GOP leaders on Capitol Hill. Some White House officials, including Trump, had grown dissatisfied with the public narrative surrounding the administration’s immigration efforts even before Pretti’s killing on Saturday sparked a scramble to contain the widening fallout, a person familiar with the conversations said. On Monday, Trump spoke with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, setting aside his long-running feud with the Democrat to push for greater coordination and weigh potentially pulling at least some federal agents out of the state. “It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post about the governor he had derided in recent months as “corrupt” and “grossly incompetent.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks during a press conference on January 24 in Minneapolis. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks during a press conference on January 24 in Minneapolis. WCCO Later in the day, he also spoke with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in what he called a “very good” conversation, writing afterward that “lots of progress is being made!” Taken together, the moves represented the first time the White House publicly reckoned with an operation that has resulted in daily confrontations with protesters and violent scenes that have unsettled even some administration officials and close Trump allies. “You’re going to have mistakes, you’re going to have messiness, but I think [Homeland Security] probably hasn’t handled it as well as it could have,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for limited immigration, criticizing the rush in particular to cast Pretti as the aggressor. “That’s the kind of thing you say when you have the actual evidence.” A picture at a makeshift memorial at the site where Alex Pretti was fatally shot in Minneapolis. A picture at a makeshift memorial at the site where Alex Pretti was fatally shot in Minneapolis. Tim Evans/Reuters In the wake of Pretti’s killing, Republican lawmakers and allies raised objections to the administration in both public and private, people familiar with the conversations said, warning the deepening crisis threatened to undermine the White House’s broader immigration efforts and cause irreparable damage to the party. Even beyond the intensifying fears of more violence on the ground, the people familiar said, Republicans vented that continuing such enforcement would backfire politically — overshadowing their efforts to amplify the fraud scandal that prompted the administration to surge federal agents into Minnesota in the first place, and further complicating the rest of Trump’s agenda. Indeed, Senate Democrats have now threatened to oppose a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, raising the prospect of another unpredictable government shutdown in a matter of days. Several GOP lawmakers, including ardent Trump allies, have since called for investigations into the shooting, with some pushing for congressional hearings as well. “Politicians, protesters, and law enforcement all have an obligation to deescalate the situation in Minnesota,” Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota wrote on X. “As with any officer-involved shooting, this demands a thorough investigation.” Administration officials on Monday also shifted notably away from their initial portrayal of Pretti as an attacker who brandished a gun at federal agents — though they maintained that he had invited the fatal encounter. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump had not characterized Pretti as a domestic terrorist, even as she declined to explain why other administration officials — including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — had claimed he fit the definition. She emphasized that various federal agencies have since begun investigations into the shooting. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a news briefing on January 26. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a news briefing on January 26. Win McNamee/Getty Images But Leavitt still faulted Democrats and local protesters for creating the combustible environment that led to federal agents shooting Renee Good earlier this month, and now Pretti. “This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota,” Leavitt said, specifically naming Walz and Frey. The attempt to moderate the administration’s rhetoric while still avoiding direct culpability underscored the challenge it faces in managing a volatile situation that threatens to consume Trump’s immigration agenda and further dent his standing on an issue that had once been his greatest strength. Polling in recent months has found growing disapproval of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its tactics on the ground, even among those who supported the administration’s initial efforts to secure the southern border. Those numbers have only worsened since the fatal shooting of Good, which garnered widespread attention among Americans — relatively few of whom sided with the administration’s contention it was a proper use of force. A CNN poll published earlier this month showed 56% of those surveyed saw it instead as “inappropriate,” while just 26% viewed it as “appropriate.” Within Trump’s circle and on Capitol Hill, some Republicans viewed Homan’s appointment as an effort to stabilize an operation that had spiraled out of control and grown counterproductive under Noem and Bovino, the people familiar with the conversations said. Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's border czar, looks on as he speaks to the media outside the White House on January 14. Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's border czar, looks on as he speaks to the media outside the White House on January 14. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters “This is a positive development — one that I hope leads to turning down the temperature and restoring order in Minnesota,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote on X. A veteran ICE official, Homan has advocated a strident approach to illegal immigration. But rather than the broad sweeps overseen by Bovino that have led to clashes with protesters, Homan has generally favored a greater focus on more targeted operations. Homan is set to meet with both Walz and Frey once he arrives in Minnesota, though it’s unclear what might change on the ground. The White House has indicated that it wants greater cooperation from state and local officials in deporting undocumented immigrants. Walz and Frey have insisted they’re already working with the federal government. The most immediate task facing Homan, though, allies said, will be easing tensions on the ground that have accumulated for weeks — and have now drawn the scrutiny of a nation increasingly turning against Trump and his deportation campaign. “Every day is Election Day in a sense — you can’t just say we won on this platform and now we can do whatever we want for the next two years,” Krikorian said. “If people don’t like it, you’ve got to keep persuading them.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Why the Trump administration is detaining immigrant children – and what happens to them next

This week, ICE’s detention of a five-year-old boy wearing a Spider Man backpack in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights quickly became a defining image of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement. Furious critics, including many local politicians, seized on Liam Ramos’s ordeal as glaring evidence that Trump’s mass deportation campaign has little to do with crime and a lot to do with terrorizing children and their families. A homeland security spokesperson said ICE officers took the boy into custody only after his father fled during an attempted arrest. The superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights said another adult living in the home was outside during the encounter and had pleaded to take care of Liam so the boy could avoid detention, but was denied. But Liam Ramos’s detention is not an isolated incident. It’s part of a uniquely aggressive push to detain more unauthorized immigrant families, a turbocharging of a policy discontinued five years ago. a young boy with a backpack View image in fullscreen Liam Conejo Ramos, five, being detained by ICE officers after arriving home from preschool on 20 January, in a Minneapolis suburb. Photograph: Ali Daniels/AP ICE booked about 3,800 minors into immigrant family detention from January to October 2025, including children as young as one or two years old, according to a Guardian analysis of records obtained by the Deportation Data Project. More than 2,600 of those minors were apprehended by ICE officers, which usually means they were apprehended somewhere inside the country rather than at the border. Those numbers mark a major shift. Previous administrations used family detention mostly to detain parents and children crossing into the United States together by land. Minors in ICE custody have special legal protections dating from a 1997 consent decree called the Flores Settlement. Under the terms of that settlement, ICE does not detain unaccompanied children. A child immigrant accompanied by a parent may be held in a detention center with somewhat higher standards than other adult facilities, but the settlement generally requires ICE to release them if the government cannot swiftly deport them. But the Trump administration is increasingly locking up families detained in high-profile immigration sweeps taking place in major cities across the country, according to Becky Wolozin, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law. “This is not people showing up at the border at this point,” Wolozin said. “It’s people being arrested who live in the United States, who have permission to live in the United States. Now, they’re starting to re-interview people who have refugee status. There’s no status that protects people any more. Even US citizens are getting arrested.” ‘It is as horrible as it looks’ Many minors may spend several days detained in places that aren’t equipped to care for children, said Sergio Perez, the executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. His organization, which represents child migrants covered by the Flores Settlement, has taken declarations from families detained for days at improvised sites in airports or office buildings. In some cases, children were forced to use the bathroom under the watch of guards of the opposite gender, Perez said. “What you’re seeing is places with no medical care, places where the lights never go out, places where the children are not allowed to go outside, places where the food is abhorrent and places where people are not treated with the dignity required by the law,” Perez said. “We’re seeing more imprisonment of families and children for longer periods of time and under more and more deplorable conditions.” Most children detained with a parent eventually end up at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, which is managed by the private prison contractor CoreCivic. Family detention centers are supposed to offer a less-jail-like setting for children, offering access to education and playgrounds. Last year, the Trump administration also detained families at a separate facility in Karnes, Texas, though it’s not clear whether ICE continues to hold families there. Homeland security did not respond to a request asking how many family detention centers it currently operates. As a lawyer representing immigrant child detainees in the ongoing litigation over their rights under the Flores Settlement, Wolozin has toured the Dilley family detention center. Constructed during Barack Obama’s second term in response to the high numbers of Central American families who began arriving at the US-Mexico border in 2014, the 2,400-bed Dilley facility is by far the largest family detention center in the country. Ramos and his father are now detained there, according to their lawyer. photos on an altar View image in fullscreen Maria García, 42, and her daughter Angela Chumil, 13, keep an altar honoring Emmanuel Gonzalez García, 15, in their north-west Houston apartment. Emmanuel was in a children’s detention center for weeks after Houston police called ICE and delivered him to federal custody, where he was declared an unaccompanied minor. Photograph: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images Many of the people who wind up there, Wolozin said, have pending asylum claims and work authorizations that prove they have complied with existing immigration laws, but were arrested anyway. Many were detained at the border patrol checkpoints that dot the highways within 100 miles (160km) of the US-Mexico border, not knowing that their work authorizations or paperwork showing they had applied for asylum or some other form of relief from removal would no longer keep them from getting detained there. Liam Ramos’s father appears to fit that pattern. His family, Ecuadorian nationals, presented themselves at the US-Mexico border using the CBP One app and then made a claim for asylum, saying they faced persecution in their home country, according to his lawyer, Marc Prokosch. “They did everything right when they came in,” Prokosch said this week at a press conference. “ICE didn’t care about the fact that they had those pending claims, and just arrested them.” The boy’s apprehension typifies the new policy of targeting immigrant families, regardless of their pending immigration claims, Wolozin said. “It is as horrible as it looks,” Wolozin said. “He’s coming home from school and now he can get abducted and detained for who knows how long and sent to somewhere he might not be safe. It’s making the United States worse than wherever they came from the first place.” Columbia Heights school officials said that ICE officers had also apprehended three other minors, according to Reuters – two 17-year-olds and a 10-year-old. ‘100% designed to hurt kids’ The modern family detention policy dates to the George W Bush administration, which established two detention centers – one in Pennsylvania, the other in Texas – to house unauthorized immigrant families together while they awaited deportation. Barack Obama scaled back family detention shortly after taking office, then dramatically increased it after the number of Central American mothers traveling with children began to surge in 2014. The first Trump administration inherited that capacity and tried unsuccessfully to overturn the provisions of the Flores Settlement in court in order to detain immigrant families until their immigration cases concluded. The first Trump administration also implemented a short-lived and widely repudiated “family separation” policy of prosecuting unauthorized immigrant parents who crossed into the United States with their children, which routed the parents into jails and their children into shelters run by the office of refugee resettlement. The Biden administration halted family immigrant detention in 2021. Now, Trump and Republicans in Congress are once again attempting to scrap the Flores Settlement’s restrictions. Last year’s “One Big, Beautiful” spending bill directs ICE to hold families “until such aliens are removed”, which directly contradicts the settlement. The bill quadrupled ICE’s immigrant detention budget to $45bn and allowed any portion of that appropriation to be used to detain families. “These are just families,” Wolozin said. “They’re not dangerous. They are really trying, by and large, to follow the ever-changing rules. This is totally, 100% unnecessary and 100% designed to hurt kids.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

House Dems rally against ICE funding just one year after dozens broke ranks on immigration

House Democrats voted overwhelmingly Thursday to block additional funding for ICE, a remarkable shift from when dozens of them voted to expand the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement authority just one year ago — and a sign of how quickly the political ground has moved since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Just seven Democrats voted for the Homeland Security spending bill that included billions for Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Don Davis of North Carolina. All represent tough terrain — Trump carried all of their districts but Gillen’s, which he lost by just over one point. 00:01 02:00 Read More Other Democrats, incensed by an ICE agent’s shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, voted against the bill — including many who voted exactly one year ago to pass the Laken Riley Act that allows for the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes. One of them, Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), a top GOP target in the midterms from a district Trump narrowly carried in 2024, argued this vote was different. “What we have seen time and again is ICE has blatantly violated our Constitution and our law, whether you’re talking about the shooting of a young mother to sending a five year old thousands of miles away to entice his father to turn himself in — this type of shit is not American,” Lee said in an interview Thursday. “ICE has plenty of money … I can’t in good conscience give them any more money until we get some type of guardrails.” Even the Democrats who voted for the funding were sharply critical of ICE. “I hate what ICE is doing in my district and across the country. It’s atrocious. It’s appalling. We should find ways to defund those operations in a surgical way,” Gonzalez said in a brief interview, adding that he supported the bill because it also included funding for Coast Guard and FEMA operations. “But voting no, just to make a statement, could have its own repercussions.” The House passed the DHS funding bill 220 to 207. Democrats’ near-united stand against the bill comes amid building opposition to Trump’s mass deportation campaign. A 49 percent plurality of voters in a new POLITICO poll conducted Jan. 16 to 19 said the effort — including Trump’s widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. — is too aggressive. “The shift is dramatic. And I think the reason for the shift is: Last year the debate in the country was about getting control of the borders and out-of-control immigration. Now the entire situation is about ICE itself and its behavior,” Mark Longabaugh, a veteran Democratic strategist, said of the party’s recalibration on immigration. Amid the growing public furor over ICE’s hardline tactics, congressional Democrats had demanded that any new Homeland Security funding come with more guardrails. The bill most of them voted against Thursday funds ICE at $10 billion through the rest of the fiscal year that ends in September, while cutting funding for removal and enforcement operations by $115 million and Border Patrol funding by $1.8 billion. It also included some Democratic demands: decreasing the number of detention beds by 5,500, providing $20 million each for body cameras for agents and independent oversight of DHS detention facilities, and directing the department to give officers more training on diffusing conflict while interacting with the public. It does not include other items Democrats pushed for, however, such as banning agents from wearing masks during operations, requiring judicial warrants, preventing DHS from detaining and deporting U.S. citizens and blocking the department from using other agencies’ personnel for immigration enforcement. The Democrats who voted in favor of the funding bill argued it was preferable to the alternative — giving Trump what Cuellar described as a “blank check” to carry out his hardline immigration agenda “virtually unchecked.” And some expressed concerns about ramifications for their districts if other agencies who receive their funding through DHS were cut off. Davis warned of the potential consequences of lapsed FEMA and Coast Guard funding in his home state of North Carolina that has been battered by storms and floods in recent years. “Obviously we should have the honest conversations about warrants. We should have the honest conversations about taking off the masks,” Davis said Thursday. But “if we can’t consistently predict when disasters are coming our way, then we’re leaving populations of people vulnerable.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

‘Is Bond Now Being Granted?’: Conflicting Orders Leave Detainees, Attorneys in Limbo

Immigration detainees hoping to be released from jail have been thrust into chaos after the chief judge of immigration courts told judges to disregard a federal order that made it possible to request bond. In recent weeks, judges in New York and New Jersey immigration court had been willing to listen to requests for bond, as a California federal judge required in a class-action order that she issued on Nov. 25. The decision struck down a six-month-old Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy that had dramatically expanded the legal definition of mandatory detention. The door, briefly opened, seemed to shut last week when Chief Judge Teresa Riley of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) issued internal guidance instructing judges to stop relying on the class-action order “forthwith.” The directive from Riley, who became chief of the office that runs the U.S. immigration courts last month, is largely unprecedented, immigration lawyers and experts told Documented, and represents the latest challenge to courts’ independence under the Trump administration. Immigration judges are career Justice Department employees who are by law independent adjudicators. Immigration News, Curated Sign up to get our curation of news, insights on big stories, job announcements, and events happening in immigration. Enter your email here... Sign Up For Free ​​“When you have a supervisor who tells you or suggests not to follow a federal district court judge’s decision, that takes away a judge’s independence,” said Jeremiah Johnson, vice president of the National Association of Immigration judges. The Trump administration has fired many immigration judges since taking office in January and also pushed out all Biden administration appointees from making decisions at the Board of Immigration Appeals. Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that the government appears to be in “open defiance” of judicial orders. “I’ve never heard of the Department of Justice immigration court leadership issuing an instruction to judges essentially to disregard a federal court order, which is essentially what this EOIR email does,” Chen said. EOIR spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly declined to respond to questions, saying the agency doesn’t comment on litigation. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to requests for comment. Conflicting Orders Riley’s memo scrambled an already confused situation: In Manhattan’s Varick Street court, the two judges who handle the bulk of the detainee immigration cases in New York City began to give opposite rulings. One judge, Charles Conroy, had granted bond hearings in previous weeks in response to the class-action order. But on Jan. 14, after Riley’s directive circulated, he said he could no longer permit the contested bond hearings. Conroy declined to comment. The other judge, Dara Reid, presiding over the detainee calendar the following day, said she had to grant a bond hearing because of the federal class-action order. “I don’t see any way around it,” Reid said, adding, “I’m bound by it.” When the ICE lawyer restated the government’s position, Reid disagreed and said, “maybe we’ll have a real answer” soon. The attorney, appearing in the courtroom by video from ICE’s office in the same building, bowed his head in laughter and covered his face. “I laughed because I didn’t want to cry,” he said. Federal Judge Sunshine Sykes, who had issued the class-action order requiring bond hearings, delayed a previously scheduled hearing last Friday until Jan. 22 to give the government’s lawyers time to respond to reports about the chief judge’s directive. Even before the chief judge’s order, most immigration judges across the country had been accepting ICE’s push to mandate detention for many more noncitizens until their deportation cases are resolved, according to Niels Frenzen, a law professor at the University of Southern California and one of the attorneys in the class-action case. Legal advocates filed the case in July, aiming to strike down a policy ICE adopted in a July 8 memo that redefined who was “seeking admission” and therefore ineligible for release on bond. The term should apply not only to people arriving unlawfully at or near the border—the practice for nearly three decades—but also to those who entered the country “without inspection” long ago, the agency said. That legal stance has helped ICE to fill its lockups. Faced with indefinite incarceration under poor conditions, many detainees have given up their legal right to contest deportation and asked to leave the country voluntarily. Federal judges have ruled in hundreds of individual cases that the policy was an unconstitutional denial of due process. The case before Sykes, in the U.S. District Court in Riverside, California, was filed on behalf of four people detained in ICE’s intensive and controversial raids in Los Angeles in June. The case garnered national attention when the judge certified it as a national class action on Nov. 25 in what appeared to be a transformative decision in favor of detainees. Since then, the Justice Department has tried various gambits to dodge the order and has also filed an appeal to the 9th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Sykes’s order remains in effect. Seeking Bond Most immigration judges in New York and New Jersey (where many New Yorkers’ cases are heard after they’re detained in the Garden State or Pennsylvania) lined up behind Judge Sykes’s Maldonado Bautista v. Noem ruling, according to interviews with local attorneys and courtroom observations. Still, the bond hearings very often end up with judges refusing to allow release. In immigration court, the burden is on detainees (rather than prosecutors, as in criminal courts) to prove they are not a flight risk or danger to the community. And it’s not so easy to prove a negative. Dulce, a 51-year-old woman born in the Puebla state of Mexico, was able to request bond thanks to the Bautista decision. On Jan. 6, she was led through the corridors of the Elizabeth Contract Detention Center to a low-ceilinged courtroom on the ground floor. Immigration Judge Arya Ranasinghe was presiding, albeit via video from her courtroom in Newark, five miles away. The judge quickly bypassed Department of Homeland Security attorney Sarah Campbell’s argument that she lacked jurisdiction to consider bond. Then Campbell sought to use a minor offense to make the case that Dulce wouldn’t return to court if released. Dulce, whose full name is being withheld by Documented, has lived in the United States since 1993 and doesn’t have a criminal record. But under the DHS lawyer’s questioning, she acknowledged getting a traffic ticket for driving with an expired license 14 years ago. Campbell demanded to know why it didn’t show up in her search of a database of New Jersey municipal court records, and implied Dulce gave a false name to police. Dulce said she didn’t know. Her attorney, Maggie Dunsmuir, quickly located the record under her name in the same database. Judge Ranasinghe set a $10,000 bond, noting that Dulce has a 9-year-old child to care for and that she had lost her husband, a U.S. citizen, to ALS in October. He was 46. Weeping and weary looking beneath a cascade of dark, wavy hair, Dulce followed a guard back to the cells in her blue scrubs to wait for her bond to be processed. She was released three days later, having been detained since Dec. 23, through the Christmas season. She was home in time for her daughter’s 10th birthday. A Challenge to Mandatory Detention The sticking point in the legal battle over this policy is a Sept. 5 decision from the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Justice Department unit that interprets immigration laws. In the decision, known as Matter of Yajure Hurtado, the board provided a legal basis for the detention policy ICE had adopted two months before. It found that a “plain reading” of a 1996 immigration law contradicted the longtime interpretation of who was “seeking admission.” The board’s published decisions are binding on immigration judges. Blocked from seeking bond for their clients in immigration court, many lawyers have gone to federal district courts to file habeas corpus lawsuits, the legal mechanism used to challenge unconstitutional detention. Federal judges have found time and again in these habeas cases that the ICE policy and the immigration board’s “plain reading” of the law were plainly wrong. In a Nov. 26 ruling, Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan cited 350 decisions that rejected the Trump administration’s novel position on mandatory detention (of the 362 total decisions about the administration’s policy). The rulings came from 160 judges in 50 courts. “Thus, the overwhelming, lopsided majority have held that the law still means what it always has meant,” Judge Kaplan wrote in ordering release of Sergio Barco Mercado, a carpenter from Peru. Barco had been granted bond in 2022 but ICE re-arrested him as he left a courtroom at 26 Federal Plaza in New York on Aug. 8. He was detained under what the court ruled elsewhere were deplorable conditions. The government’s argument “does not and has never had a reasonable basis in statutory text, structure, or history,” Kaplan wrote. “Their position has been rejected with near unanimity in the overwhelming majority of cases across the country.” In his order, he required the government to pay Barco’s legal fees. More such rulings have followed. In a Jan. 2 decision, Judge Clay Land of U.S. District Court in Columbus, Georgia, ordered bond hearings for the plaintiffs in 44 separate habeas cases with a single two-page ruling. He wrote: “The brevity of this order is appropriate given that the issue presented is exactly the same as the issue previously decided on numerous occasions by the Court and yet Respondents [the government agencies] insist upon denying the relief that the Court has found is required.” But all of these rulings were for individual cases. Judge Sykes’s Nov. 25 decision to grant class-action status to her previous ruling in the Maldonado Bautista case changed that. Immigrant advocates rejoiced. But ICE lawyers went on to tell immigration judges for more than three weeks that the ruling didn’t apply because Judge Sykes had not entered a final judgment in the case. In the Elizabeth court, Immigration Judge Tamar Wilson rejected several bond requests on Dec. 18 because in her view, the Hurtado case remained in effect. In one instance, she told the lawyer for a Guatemalan man, Jose Madrid-Vargas, that if she did have jurisdiction, she would grant release on $7,500 bond. Later that same day in California, Judge Sykes filed the final judgment in the class-action case; it “vacates” the policy described in the July 8 ICE memo across the country. She also made clear she’d invalidated the Hurtado ruling. She said she didn’t specifically vacate the Hurtado decision because it came after the lawsuit before her was filed. But, she wrote, the Hurtado interpretation contradicted her order and therefore “is no longer controlling.” DHS attorneys sought to sidestep Sykes’s Dec.18 order by telling judges in immigration courts in Newark, Elizabeth and New York that the ruling had not formally vacated the Hurtado decision. This was true, but misleading: Sykes’s clarifying order on Dec. 18 stated that Hurtado should no longer be relied on. In a Jan. 9 report to the court, the plaintiffs in the class action case said that “remarkably,” judges are taking different positions even within the same immigration court. Further Confusion This back and forth between ICE’s attorneys and immigration judges, on whether to conform to Hurtado or Bautista, has left an uncertain terrain for any immigration detainee who hopes to be released on bond. “Is bond now being granted?” the lawyer for a Senegalese detainee asked Newark Immigration Judge Michael Neal on Dec. 29. “Are you referring to Bautista?” the judge responded. “Yes.” “There have been developments on that case” was all the judge would say. It’s the question of the hour for detainees and their lawyers. “What’s your position with the Maldonado [Bautista] bond hearings?” attorney Sebastian Estrada asked on Jan. 7 on behalf of a Mexican client held in an Orange County, New York, jail. “Are you hearing them?” “Yes, I am,” Conroy, the New York immigration judge, answered. Nonetheless, the DHS attorney on duty in Judge Conroy’s court continued to present the Trump administration’s argument in each bond hearing. “I don’t agree with that, based on Bautista,” Conroy replied. That didn’t help an Indian immigrant who appeared before him. The judge found that he failed to prove he wasn’t a danger to the community, based on a conviction for aggravated driving under the influence. Across the hall on Jan. 8, Immigration Judge Thomas Mungoven was filling in on detainee docket duty for the week. He tried to avoid declaring where he stood between the rock and the hard place of the two legal decisions. DHS once again argued that the Hurtado case barred a hearing, this time for a Staten Island man from Mexico, whose supporting documents included a letter from Bishop Peter Byrne of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. ALSO READ How New Yorkers Are Stepping Up to Protect Immigrant Neighbors BY Eileen Grench Jan 23, 2026 The judge refused bond, based on the man’s 2014 conviction for assault and two more recent criminal cases that were dismissed. “I’m not addressing the Hurtado-Bautista issue,” he emphasized. But in a sense, he was. Just by hearing the request, the judge had taken a position. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Thousands protest against Trump immigration policies

Jan 20 (Reuters) - Thousands of U.S. workers and students marched through cities and university campuses on Tuesday in opposition to the immigration policies of President Donald Trump. On the first anniversary of Trump's second term, protests sprang up across the country against his aggressive immigration crackdown that prompted outrage after federal agents dragged a U.S. citizen from her car and shot dead 37-year-old mother Renee Good in Minneapolis in past weeks. The Reuters Inside Track newsletter is your essential guide to the biggest events in global sport. Sign up here. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Hundreds of protesters gathered in Washington and smaller cities like Asheville, North Carolina, where demonstrators marched through the downtown shouting "No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA," according to online videos. Item 1 of 4 People hold signs and a U.S. flag during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's policies on the one-year mark into his second term in office in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh [1/4]People hold signs and a U.S. flag during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's policies on the one-year mark into his second term in office in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab The Trump administration says it has a mandate from voters to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally. Recent polls show most Americans disapprove of the use of force by officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. University students demonstrated in Cleveland, Ohio, chanting "No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here" while high schoolers in Santa Fe, New Mexico, left class to attend a "Stop ICE Terror" rally at the state capitol, according to protest organizers and school officials. Advertisement · Scroll to continue The actions were organized by left-leaning groups such as Indivisible and 50501, as well as labor unions and grassroots organizations opposed to immigrant detention camps, like one in El Paso, Texas, where three detainees have died in the last six weeks, according to federal authorities. The demonstrations were set to roll west to cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, where afternoon and evening protests were planned. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump's ICE force is sweeping America. Billions in his tax and spending cuts bill are paying for it

WASHINGTON (AP) — A ballooning Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget. Hiring bonuses of $50,000. Swelling ranks of ICE officers, to 22,000, in an expanding national force bigger than most police departments in America. President Donald Trump promised the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, but achieving his goal wouldn't have been possible without funding from the big tax and spending cuts bill passed by Republicans in Congress, and it's fueling unprecedented immigration enforcement actions in cities like Minneapolis and beyond. The GOP's big bill is "supercharging ICE," one budget expert said, in ways that Americans may not fully realize — and that have only just begun. "I just don't think people have a sense of the scale," said Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress and a former adviser to the Biden administration's Office of Management and Budget. "We're looking at ICE in a way we've never seen before," he said. Trump's big bill creates massive law enforcement force As the Republican president marks the first year of his second term, the immigration enforcement and removal operation that has been a cornerstone of his domestic and foreign policy agenda is rapidly transforming into something else — a national law enforcement presence with billions upon billions of dollars in new spending from U.S. taxpayers. The shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis showed the alarming reach of the new federalized force, sparking unrelenting protests against the military-styled officers seen going door to door to find and detain immigrants. Amid the outpouring of opposition, Trump revived threats to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell the demonstrations and the U.S. Army has 1,500 soldiers ready to deploy. But Trump's own public approval rating on immigration, one of his signature issues, has slipped since he took office, according to an AP-NORC poll. "Public sentiment is everything," said Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, D-N.Y., at a press conference at the Capitol with lawmakers supporting legislation to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Americans, she said, are upset at what they are seeing. "They didn't sign on for this," she said. Border crossings down, but Americans confront new ICE enforcements To be sure, illegal crossings into the U.S. at the Mexico border have fallen to historic lows under Trump, a remarkable shift from just a few years ago when President Joe Biden's Democratic administration allowed millions of people to temporarily enter the U.S. as they adjudicated their claims to stay. Yet as enforcement moves away from the border, the newly hired army of immigration officers swarming city streets with aggressive tactics — in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere — is something not normally seen in the U.S. Armed and masked law enforcement officers are being witnessed smashing car windows, yanking people from vehicles and chasing and wrestling others to the ground and hauling them away — images playing out in endless loops on TVs and other screens. And it's not just ICE. A long list of supporting agencies, including federal, state and local police and sheriff's offices, are entering into contract partnerships with Homeland Security to conduct immigration enforcement operations in communities around the nation. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has warned Democrats that this is "no time to be playing games" by stirring up the opposition to immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis and other places. WATCH: Minnesota protests enter 3rd week as immigration raids continue "They need to get out of the way and allow federal law enforcement to do its duty," Johnson said at the Capitol. Noem has said the immigration enforcement officers are acting lawfully. The department insists it's targeting criminals in the actions, what officials call the worst of the worst immigrants. However, reports show that non-criminals and U.S. citizens are also being forcibly detained by immigration officers. The Supreme Court last year lifted a ban on using race alone in the immigration stops. Trump last month called Somali immigrants "garbage," comments that echoed his past objections to immigrants from certain countries. The Trump administration has set a goal of 100,000 detentions a day, about three times what's typical, with 1 million deportations a year. Money from the big bill flows with few restraints With Republican control of Congress, the impeachment of Noem or any other Trump official is not a viable political option for Democrats, who would not appear to have the vote tally even among their own ranks. In fact, even if Congress wanted to curtail Trump's immigration operations — by threatening to shut down the government, for example — it would be difficult to stop the spend. What Trump called the "big, beautiful bill" is essentially on autopilot through 2029, the year he's scheduled to finish his term and leave office. The legislation essentially doubled annual Homeland Security funding, adding $170 billion to be used over four years. Of that, ICE, which typically receives about $10 billion a year, was provided $30 billion for operations and $45 billion for detention facilities. "The first thing that comes to mind is spending on this level is typically done on the military," said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. "Trump is militarizing immigration enforcement." Ahead, Congress will consider a routine annual funding package for Homeland Security unveiled Tuesday, or risk a partial shutdown Jan. 30. A growing group of Democratic senators and the Congressional Progressive Caucus have had enough. They say they won't support additional funds without significant changes. Lawmakers are considering various restrictions on ICE operations, including limiting arrests around hospitals, courthouses, churches and other sensitive locations and ensuring that officers display proper identification and refrain from wearing face masks. "I think ICE needs to be totally torn down," said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., on CNN over the weekend. "People want immigration enforcement that goes after criminals," he said. And not what he called this "goon squad." Big spending underway, but Trump falls short of goals Meanwhile, Homeland Security has begun tapping the new money at its disposal. The department informed Congress it has obligated roughly $58 billion — most of that, some $37 billion, for border wall construction, according to a person familiar with the private assessment but unauthorized to discuss it. The Department of Homeland Security said its massive recruitment campaign blew past its 10,000-person target to bring in 12,000 new hires, more than doubling the force to 22,000 officers, in a matter of months. "The good news is that thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill that President Trump signed, we have an additional 12,000 ICE officers and agents on the ground across the country," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a December statement. The department also announced it had arrested and deported about 600,000 people. It also said 1.9 million other people had "voluntarily self-deported" since January 2025, when Trump took office. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Judge allows Trump administration to block lawmakers’ access to ICE facilities

The Trump administration won a legal victory on Monday that temporarily allows it to keep elected officials out of immigration detention camps, while it advanced two other court actions in support of its surge into Minnesota. A federal judge in Washington DC ruled that the homeland security department (DHS) can continue to insist that lawmakers provide a week’s notice of their intention to inspect immigration facilities, even though she blocked an identical policy last month. Separately, justice department lawyers urged a district court judge in Minneapolis to allow the administration’s immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota to continue, in response to a lawsuit filed by the state seeking to end what it called a “federal invasion”. And in a related development, the justice department said it was appealing an injunction issued on Friday curbing aggressive tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies in dealing with protesters. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, backtracked on Sunday on her insistence that federal agents had not used chemical substances including pepper spray against crowds protesting ICE actions, and claimed instead they were necessary to “establish law and order”. The Washington DC ruling on congressional oversight of federal immigration facilities comes after three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison, said DHS officials illegally blocked them from performing authorized congressional oversight when they tried to inspect an ICE detention center near Minneapolis earlier this month. The Colorado congressman Joe Neguse and colleagues filed a lawsuit arguing that it violated district court judge Jia Cobb’s December ruling blocking DHS from enforcing a seven-day notice period. But in four-page ruling on Monday, Cobb said the fact that the DHS claimed it was now enforcing the seven-day requirement using funding from a different source, namely Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, instead of existing appropriations, meant the policy “facially differs” from the one she blocked. “If plaintiffs wish to challenge the legality of a new agency action, plaintiffs may seek leave to amend their complaint or file a supplemental pleading,” she wrote, adding that she would consider another temporary restraining order. Neguse did not respond to Cobb’s ruling, but in an earlier post on social media said no-notice inspections were essential. “The law is crystal-clear: the administration can’t block members of Congress from conducting real-time oversight of immigration detention facilities,” he wrote. Meanwhile, the justice department responded on Monday to the lawsuit brought by Minnesota, and the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, seeking an end to ICE activities, claiming the state was demanding an unprecedented veto over federal law enforcement. At a press conference last week announcing the action, Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, said the cities were being terrorized by federal actions, including the shooting death of Renee Good, an unarmed US citizen, by an ICE agent. “We allege that DHS’s use of excessive and lethal force, their warrantless, racist arrests, their targeting of our courts, our churches, houses of worship and schools are a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act on arbitrary and capricious federal actions,” he said. Justice department lawyers, however, called the lawsuit “an absurdity”, according to the New York Times. “It would render the supremacy of federal law an afterthought to local preferences,” they said, and an injunction blocking the operation “would constitute an unprecedented act of judicial overreach”, the newspaper reported. Katherine Menendez, the Joe Biden-appointed district court judge hearing the case, made no immediate ruling but indicated she might hold another hearing before deciding on the lawsuit’s merits. Menendez is also the judge who issued the order on Friday curtailing ICE’s tactics, including “retaliation” against protesters and “the drawing and pointing of weapons; the use of pepper spray and other non-lethal munitions; actual and threatened arrest and detainment of protesters and observers; and other intimidation tactics”. The DHS told Menendez on Monday it had filed an appeal notice with the eighth district court of appeal, the New York Times reported, noting that the text of the document was not immediately available. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

How ICE grew to be the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency

Just 10 years ago, the annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was less than $6 billion — notably smaller than other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. But ICE's budget has skyrocketed during President Trump's second term, becoming the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, with $85 billion now at its disposal. The windfall is thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted last July. After hovering around the $10 billion mark for years, ICE's budget suddenly benefited from a meteoric spike. "With this new bill and other appropriations, it's larger than the annual budget of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined," said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy institute. Sponsor Message ICE is now the lead agency in President's Trump immigration crackdown, sending thousands of agents into U.S. communities. As its funding and profile has grown as part of those efforts, ICE has come under increasing criticism for its officers' actions, from masked agents randomly stopping, questioning, and detaining people and thrusting them into unmarked vehicles to the recent killing of Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis. A cycle of more migrants, more money and a larger ICE mission ICE's sudden growth spurt follows roughly two decades of relatively modest funding since 2003, when the agency was created by merging the U.S. Customs Service with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In 2015, for instance, Congress approved a budget of around $5.96 billion, which was nearly $1 billion less than then-President Barack Obama had requested. A woman poses for a portrait outside her home, Saturday, July 19, 2025, in Tampa. Her family are discussing emergency plans if she or her husband were to be detained, and are looking to move to another state where the police presence is less felt. (Lexi Parra for NPR) National 'We need to get out of here': Trump's immigration crackdown is quietly reshaping where immigrants live in America National Limiting migration led to 1.6 million losing legal status in 2025 In 2019, during the first Trump administration, border control officer's encounters with migrants attempting authorized entry to the U.S. spiked. Those numbers then plummeted as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted invocation of the Title 42 public health law, allowing CBP to expel migrants more quickly, with restricted pathways to asylum. Encounters rose sharply under former President Joe Biden and soared above 3.2 million in 2023, when Biden lifted Title 42. By late 2024, fewer migrants were arriving at the border, due to U.S. asylum limits and Mexico bolstering enforcement. When Trump returned to the White House in 2025, he sought to empower immigration authorities to quickly remove migrants and announced a crackdown led by ICE. Sponsor Message Under the 2025 law, ICE has a $75 billion supplement that it can take as long as four years to spend, along with its base budget of around $10 billion. If the agency spends that money at a steady pace and current funding levels continue, it would have nearly $29 billion on hand each year. That essentially triples ICE's total budget from recent years. To give that large number a sense of scale, consider that the Trump administration's 2026 appropriations request for the entire Justice Department, including the FBI, stands at a little over $35 billion. People detained by federal agents walk into a suburban Chicago ICE detention center in Broadview, Ill., on Sept. 19. Immigration It's the deadliest year for people in ICE custody in decades; next year could be worse The Trump administration has set lofty goals for ICE, aiming to deport 1 million people each year. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act also allocates $45 billion for ICE to expand its immigration detention system — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last June that the agency will be able to hold up to 100,000 people in custody daily. By comparison, the federal Bureau of Prisons currently holds over 153,000 inmates. As of Nov. 30, 65,735 people were held in immigration detention, according to the data tracking project Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. With those metrics in mind, ICE went on a hiring spree in 2025, fueled by its bigger budget. In just one year, the agency says, it "more than doubled our officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000." (The Office of Personnel Management, which tracks federal workforce statistics, is only updated through Nov. 30 and does not reflect any hiring made by the DHS in the last quarter of the year.) According to the DHS, ICE received 220,000 applications in 2025, thanks in part to a generous incentive package with perks like a signing bonus of up to $50,000, disbursed over the course of a five-year commitment, and up to $60,000 in student loan repayment. ICE is still on that hiring spree, looking to hire deportation officers in at least 25 cities around the U.S., according to a job listing on the USA Jobs website that will remain active through the end of September. The starting salary for an ICE deportation officer in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division, or ERO, ranges from $51,632 up to $84,277. Sponsor Message Liz Goggin (left), a licensed clinical social worker, and Mahri Stainnak had both served in the federal government for more than a decade. In 2025, Goggin quit her job while Stainnak was fired. Politics Under Trump, 317,000 workers are out of the government. Here are 3 of their stories Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025. Politics Trump is proposing big budget cuts — except for defense and the border The dramatic growth came in the same year that the Trump administration sharply reduced the number of federal workers, firing thousands of employees and inviting many more to resign. What else will the new funds be spent on? With base level funding for DHS and ICE due to expire at the end of January, Democrats in Congress are calling for changes to how ICE operates. It comes after a year in which deaths of people in ICE custody spiked to the highest levels in decades, with ICE reporting seven deaths in December, and three more in 2026, as of Jan. 16. ICE's increased budget makes sense to Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the right-wing Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group advocating for lower levels of immigration. He says the funding boost " is directly commensurate with the size of the task the agency is addressing." Dan Stein poses for a portrait at his home in Rockville, Md., on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. National From the fringes to the mainstream: Meet the hard-line anti-immigration activist who helped shape Trump's agenda "ICE exists to find and remove people who are in the country illegally," Mehlman said, referring to a category that grew when the Trump administration stripped legal status from 1.6 million immigrants in 2025. The focus of the new spending reflects President Trump's emphasis on arrests and removals, said Margy O'Herron, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center's liberty and national security program who worked at the DOJ in the Biden administration. O'Herron said she agrees with the idea that, for years, a reasonable case could be made that DHS agencies such as ICE and CBP needed more money. But other parts of the immigration system aren't getting as much help, she said. "All of the money is going to enforcement to arrest, to detain and to deport," she said. "It's not going to things like immigration hearings or immigration judges, to conduct additional review of whether or not somebody should be in the country. And that is a real problem for the system." For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Immigration Lawsuit Filed To Protect H-1B Spouses

A new immigration lawsuit aims to protect the spouses of H-1B visa holders likely to lose work authorization under a new federal rule. The rule ended the automatic extension of employment authorization documents and could lead to employers removing workers from payroll due to expected delays in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processing. Analysts view the rule as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the labor supply by restricting nearly all elements of the U.S. immigration system. In Donald Trump’s first term, USCIS put a rule on the agenda to end work authorization for H-4 spouses and set up new policies that created enormous delays in approving work permits for the spouses. Employment authorization documents allow individuals to work lawfully in the United States. While a lawful permanent resident or naturalized citizen has the right to work, a temporary visa holder or other “nonimmigrant” must have employment authorization. To address long processing delays for employment authorization documents, or EADs, the Biden administration published a rule allowing a 540-day automatic extension if USCIS did not complete processing an EAD application before the work permit expired. The new Trump administration rule overturned that regulation for new applications. The complaint argues the rule was unlawful. Other recent actions to restrict high-skilled individuals and other temporary visa holders include imposing a $100,000 fee on the entry of new H-1B visa holders and a rule restricting international students by replacing the current “duration of status” policy with fixed admission periods. PROMOTED The Lawsuit Against The Immigration Rule Ending Automatic Extensions A complaint filed on behalf of seven dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders alleges the Department of Homeland Security published an unlawful rule on October 30, 2025. DHS published an interim final rule, which means the agency did not go through the normal notice and comment rulemaking process. Jon Wasden of Wasden Law and San Marino, California-based attorney Justin Tseng represent the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed on Jan. 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division. The lawsuit’s goal, Wasden said in an interview, is for a judge to vacate the rule nationwide and for USCIS to return to automatic extensions of employment authorization documents. The complaint makes several arguments. First, the plaintiffs explain that the Biden administration’s rule on automatic extension resulted from actions taken during Donald Trump’s first term that caused long delays for processing extensions of EADs. DHS, through USCIS, established biometric requirements that plaintiffs in an earlier lawsuit alleged were designed to deprive H-1B spouses of their ability to work. MORE FOR YOU U.S. Immigration Service Issues Guidance On Who Pays The $100,000 H-1B Fee New Trump Immigration Policy: Ending The H-1B Visa Lottery Trump Deals A New Immigration Blow To International Students Frase By Forbes In 2022, DHS settled a class action lawsuit, Edakunni v. Mayorkas. As part of the lawsuit, DHS stopped the re-collection of biometrics (DHS had already collected biometrics for the applicants at least once) and returned to processing applications for an H-1B visa holder and his or her spouse at the same time. The agency also published a rule in May 2022 that provided automatic extensions up to 540 days for EADs. Second, the plaintiffs argue that the Oct. 30 interim final rule is “high on platitudinal invocations of national security concerns, but exceedingly low on a factual predicate showing a threat exists, or that the rule will address the threat.” According to the complaint, “The only factual support listed for the national security claims is a non sequitur: an individual in the U.S. pursuant to a lawful status threw a Molotov cocktail at a pro-Palestine rally, while his status extension and EAD renewal were pending.” CEO: C-suite news, analysis, and advice for top decision makers right to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to receive this newsletter, other updates about Forbes and its affiliates’ offerings, our Terms of Service (including resolving disputes on an individual basis via arbitration), and you acknowledge our Privacy Statement. Forbes is protected by reCAPTCHA, and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The plaintiffs assert there is no “nexus” explained between the Molotov cocktail and the EAD’s auto extension. “Afterall, even if EAD auto extension was not available, the cocktail thrower would have still been legally in the country and able to attend the event and commit the offense.” Third, the complaint alleges that DHS “intentionally misrepresents the process” by implying that the agency only vets foreign nationals when USCIS adjudicates a benefit. According to the plaintiffs, “In fact, DHS developed and employed the capacity to screen and vet individuals continuously via the ATLAS system and the Continuous Immigration Vetting programs, which are not discussed in the IFR [interim final rule].” Fourth, the plaintiffs write, “When, in cases like this, the agency does an about face and promulgates a rule that completely contradicts a prior regulation heightened standards are applied.” They also note, “When abandoning a rule, the agency is required to acknowledge reliance interests created by the prior rule. A rule that ignores those interests would be arbitrary and capricious.” The complaint argues failing to vacate the rule will harm the U.S. economy: “The spouses of specialty occupation workers are typically highly educated with professional ambitions and achievements that often match or surpass their H-1B spouses. The National Foundation for American Policy analysis of data indicates that nearly 90% of H4 visa holders have at least a bachelor’s degree, and almost half have a graduate or doctorate degree.” Attorneys for the spouses of H-1B visa holders hope the judge shares their views about the immigration policy that lies behind the DHS rule. “The administration’s true rationale, stripping the ability of people lawfully in the U.S. of the ability to sustain themselves, is embarrassingly obvious.” For more information, visit us at For more information, visit us at.

5 takeaways from new polls of the Minneapolis ICE shooting

After an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis one week ago, reactions on social media and among politicians and political influencers rapidly polarized. But how do the rest of Americans – i.e. those who didn’t so quickly weigh in – feel? We’ve now got a better sense, thanks to three high-quality polls released in the last 24 hours – including a new poll from CNN. Here are a few things we can say. 1. Americans side against ICE You could have been forgiven for thinking the ICE shooting would be a 50-50 issue – or close to it. But it’s not. The CNN poll shows 56% of US adults said the ICE agent’s use of force was “inappropriate,” compared to just 26% who said it was “appropriate.” Similarly, Quinnipiac University and Yahoo News-YouGov polls released Tuesday tested whether people thought the shooting was “justified.” The former showed registered voters said it was “not justified” by 53%-35%, while the latter showed Americans said it wasn’t justified 52%-27%. People march during a demonstration against increased immigration enforcement, days after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. People march during a demonstration against increased immigration enforcement, days after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Tim Evans/Reuters So three polls, all with margins of between 18 and 30 points against ICE. That’s a pretty decisive verdict in public opinion. Each poll showed independents said the shooting was wrong by at least a 2-to-1 margin. And Democrats were significantly more likely to object (87% in the CNN poll) than Republicans were to stand by the ICE agent (61%). Most everything the Trump administration is doing these days is unpopular. But these numbers suggest ICE’s use of force is more unpopular than most. And it’s not even as if Trump supporters are united. 2. Just one-quarter echo the administration’s ‘domestic terrorism’ claim But it’s worth emphasizing that the Trump administration didn’t just say the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, was justified in shooting Good. It went quite a bit further, immediately casting Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism” and saying she intentionally targeted the ICE agent with her car. It’s looking pretty clear that that is out of step with the public’s interpretation of events. The Yahoo-YouGov poll shows just 24% of Americans said Good was committing domestic terrorism. Only 52% of Republicans agreed with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on that. Some in the administration have occasionally seemed to walk back Noem’s claim, allowing that perhaps Good didn’t deliberately target the officer. “Look, I don’t know what’s in a person’s heart or in a person’s head,” Vice President JD Vance conceded last week when pressed on Good’s intent 3. The story has really penetrated In case there was any doubt how big this news was, the polls show Americans are overwhelmingly paying close attention. The Yahoo poll showed 63% said they had heard “a lot” about the situation. And the Quinnipiac poll showed 82% of voters said they’d seen a video of the shooting. Those are huge numbers in an American public that often tunes out political news. For instance, even after the US ousted a foreign leader (Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro) earlier this month, just 42% in a Reuters-Ipsos poll said they had heard “a lot” about it. Marquette University Law School regularly asked such questions throughout 2025. Out of dozens of news events tested, only a handful garnered that much attention. 4. Signs of a growing problem for the administration Indeed, the danger in this episode for the administration is not just that Americans disagree with its posture on the ICE agent. As I wrote last week, the political risk is that this becomes a flashpoint in the debate over ICE and President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. ICE and Trump’s deportations have polled poorly for a while now, but we haven’t seen a huge backlash in Congress or the streets. In recent days, we’ve started to see some key influencers like Joe Rogan more vocally criticizing the ICE raids. Rogan, who supported Trump in 2024, likened ICE’s actions to the “Gestapo.” The new polls show ICE’s overall numbers haven’t changed much; people disliked the way the agency is enforcing immigration laws before the Minneapolis shooting (57%-39% in a July Quinnipiac poll), and they still dislike it today (57%-40%). But the numbers also suggest the episode could add some urgency to the public’s pre-existing concerns about Trump’s deportations. The CNN poll asked a follow-up for those who labeled the shooting “inappropriate.” It asked whether they believed this was just an isolated incident or whether it “reflects bigger problems with the way ICE is operating.” Fully 9 in 10 critics of this episode chose the latter. So a 51% majority of Americans said not only that the ICE agent’s actions were wrong in this situation, but they attached it to more systemic problems with the agency. Also striking were a pair of poll findings testing views of ICE raids overall: Americans said 51%-31% that ICE’s enforcement actions are making cities “less safe” rather than “more safe,” per the CNN poll. They also said 54%-34% that ICE raids in major US cities are “doing more harm than good,” per the Yahoo poll. That’s two polls showing people think these raids are actually counter-productive – both by 20-point margins. We’ve seen evidence before that Americans think Trump overreached with his deportations and don’t like his administration’s tactics. But not necessarily like this. 5. Noem’s approval is slipping amid nascent impeachment push US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a press conference to discuss ICE operations in New York on January 8. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a press conference to discuss ICE operations in New York on January 8. TIMOTHY A.CLARY/AFP/AFP via Getty Images There’s a budding movement in the Democratic Party to potentially target Noem for impeachment. The polls suggest her political stock is declining. Americans disapproved of Noem 61%-38% in the CNN poll and registered voters disapproved 52%-36% in the Quinnipiac poll. The latter suggested Noem has lost ground in recent months. A July Quinnipiac poll showed Noem 11 points underwater (50%-39%), compared to 16 points underwater today. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

US will suspend immigrant visa processing from 75 countries over public assistance concerns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Wednesday it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, whose nationals the Trump administration has deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States. The State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said it had instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from the countries affected in accordance with a broader order issued in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become “public charges” in the U.S. The step builds on earlier immigration and travel bans by the administration on nearly 40 countries and is part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to tighten U.S. entry standards for foreigners. “The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people,” the department said in a statement. “Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassess immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits.” The suspension, which will begin Jan. 21, will not apply to applicants seeking non-immigrant visas, or temporary tourist or business visas, who make up the vast majority of visa seekers. Demand for non-immigrant visas is expected to rise dramatically in the coming months and years due to the upcoming 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics both of which the U.S. will host or co-host. Cable calls for screening of non-immigrant visa applicants A separate notice sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates said that non-immigrant visa applicants should be screened for the possibility that they might seek public benefits in the United States. “With the uncovering of massive public benefits fraud across the United States, the Trump administration is laser-focused on eliminating and preventing fraud in public benefits programs,” said the cable that referred specifically to most non-immigrant visa applications and was sent on Monday. The cable, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, urged consular officers to ensure that foreigners wanting to travel to the U.S. “have been fully vetted and screened” for whether they may rely on public services before they are issued a visa. The cable noted several times that it is up to the applicant to prove that they would not apply for public benefits while in the U.S. and said consular officers who suspect the applicant might apply should require them to fill out a form proving their financial bona fides. President Donald Trump’s administration has already severely restricted immigrant and non-immigrant visa processing for citizens of dozens of countries, many of them in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Consular officials must consider a range of personal details The November guidance on which Wednesday’s decision is based directed U.S. Embassy and consulate officials to comprehensively and thoroughly vet visa applicants to demonstrate that they will not need to rely on public benefits from the government any time after their admission in the U.S. While federal law already required those seeking permanent residency or legal status to prove they wouldn’t be a public charge, Trump in his first term widened the range of benefit programs that could disqualify applicants, and the guidelines in the cable appear to go further in scope. Immigrants seeking entry into the U.S. already undergo a medical exam by a physician who’s been approved by a U.S. Embassy. They are screened for communicable diseases, like tuberculosis, and asked to disclose any history of drug or alcohol use, mental health conditions or violence. They’re also required to have a number of vaccinations. The new directive expanded those with more specific requirements. It said consular officials must consider a range of specific details about people seeking visas, including their age, health, family status, finances, education, skills and any past use of public assistance regardless of the country. It also said they should assess applicants’ English proficiency and can do so by conducting interviews in English. Experts said at the time it could further limit who gets to enter the country at a time when the Republican administration is already tightening those rules. The countries affected by the suspension announced on Wednesday are: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

DHS announces termination of protected status for Somalis after group targeted by Trump

The Trump administration announced Tuesday it will end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalis in March, effectively forcing as many as 2,400 people out of the U.S., despite the president's remarks last month that Somalia was "barely a country." Somali migrants with TPS will be required to leave the country by March 17, Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced Tuesday. That is, unless a court pauses the TPS revocation. "Temporary means temporary," Noem wrote in a statement to ABC News. "Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law's requirement for Temporary Protected Status. Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first." In this Nov. 17, 2025, file photo, President Donald Trump, is shown with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, at a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Win McNamee/Getty Images, FILE The move comes after President Donald Trump has recently criticized Somali immigrants, describing them as "garbage" and saying he doesn't want them in the United States during a Cabinet meeting last month. "We always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they're good at is going after ships," Trump said as he addressed supporters in Pennsylvania last month. Trump describes Somali immigrants as 'garbage' amid feud with Minnesota congresswoman, governor The president doubled down on his criticism of the Somali community on Tuesday and threatened to denaturalize anyone convicted of fraud. "We've got a lot of them out already, but we're getting them out. We're also going to revoke the citizenship of any naturalized immigrant from Somalia, or anywhere else, who is convicted of defrauding our citizens," he said during an event in Detroit. "We're going to get them the hell out of here fast." DHS made a reference to Tuesday's announcement in an X post that had a black and white photo of Trump in the Oval Office that referenced the 2013 movie "Captain Phillips," which dramatized the 2009 merchant boat hostage situation by Somali pirates. "I am the captain now," DHS wrote in the post. TPS is given to nationals of select countries who are unable to return home safely due to conditions such as famine, war and environmental disasters. Immigrants who have TPS designation can not be removed by DHS and are given an Eligible for an Employment Authorization Document that allows them to legally work in the U.S. Somalis in Minnesota say ICE agents already targeting their community Somalia has been under a TPS designation since 1991, when civil war broke out and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians. It has been renewed several times over the last 34 years as the conflict has grown. The State Department currently has a travel advisory -- in effect since May of last year -- warning people not to travel to Somalia due to "crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health, kidnapping, piracy" and other issues. Noem did not go into further detail about her description of improved conditions in Somalia, which appear to contradict the State Department's advisory. In this Oct. 8, 2025, file photo, President Donald Trump listens to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speak during a roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images, FILE Immigration attorneys who spoke with ABC News Tuesday criticized DHS's claim that conditions in Somalia have improved. "That statement is really belied and contradicted by the facts on the ground," Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told ABC News. "The State Department's own website warns that the country continues to see terrorism, violent crime and civil unrest." Chen said that conditions in Somalia have worsened, pointing to the escalating conflict between the federal government and the terrorist group Al-Shabaab. In this Nov. 11, 2025, file photo, Somali soldiers are shown near armored personnel carriers, in Sabiid Canole, Somalia. Jackson Njehia/AP, FILE "To suggest that it is safe for Somali nationals to be forced to return to a country with an active military conflict doesn't make sense from a safety consideration, or from the statutory requirements for TPS established by Congress," Chen said. Chen said that while some individuals may qualify for legal status through family members or other forms of relief, many others will be left without a lawful path to remain in the country. David Wilson, an immigration attorney in Minnesota who represents Somali TPS holders, told ABC News that some clients who have lived in the U.S. since the late 1990s now face potential deportation. "There are also people who arrived more recently to escape the growing threat of Al-Shabaab who are now truly fearful," Wilson said. Wilson argued that the administration is "trying to sell a vision of a much different country than the rest of the world knows to be true." PHOTO: Protesters march through frigid conditions, with temperatures near 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 Celsius), in a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Dec. 20, 2025. Protesters march through frigid conditions, with temperatures near 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 Celsius), in a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Dec. 20, 2025, where many Somali, Latino and Hispanic immigrants live and work, during the "MN Love Our Immigrant Neighbors - ICE Out of MN!" rally calling for the removal of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Minnesota. Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images, FILE As of 2024, there are nearly 260,000 Americans of Somali descent living in the U.S, according to the census. Of that population, more than 115,000 are foreign-born and more than 93,000 -- or more than 80% -- of the foreign-born population are naturalized U.S. citizens, according to the census data. Trump has repeatedly bashed the American Somali community, particularly the ones living in Minnesota, which has the largest share of Somali nationals in the country, according to the census. As of Tuesday, there are 2,471 Somali nationals currently in the U.S. under TPS, with 1,383 in the country with pending TPS applications, a source with knowledge of the data told ABC News. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has slammed Trump for his comments targeting Somalis. "We've got little children going to school today, who their president called them 'garbage,'" Walz said at an event last month. Trump has repeated his criticisms against the Somali community following reports of fraud in the state, allegedly perpetrated by Somali immigrants against Minnesota's social services system. Trump ramps up anti-immigrant rhetoric, embraces 's---hole countries' phrase The allegations are being investigated; Minnesota officials have disputed the allegations. The Trump administration has revoked and refused to renew TPS protections for several countries since he took office last year -- including for Venezuelan nationals. However, those decisions have been fought in court cases that have argued that DHS has made its moves in part by racial animus, citing the president and Noem's rhetoric. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.