DHS Is Using FEMA Buildings as Pop-up Immigration Courts, Denying Public Access

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has been using federal office buildings in several cities to operate as makeshift immigration courts, with judges deciding cases via Zoom video, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Two such courts have been confirmed in Washington, DC and in Manhattan, New York. Additional locations are being considered in Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; Denver, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. Notably, the two pop-up courts in Washington DC and Manhattan bear no signage indicating they are immigration courts. And — in violation of existing policy — the courts are not open to the public or attorneys. Immigration courts and courtrooms are generally open to the public, without prior registration. In response to American Community Media’s emailed request for information, DHS said it began using the FEMA Headquarters Conference Center to conduct “critical operations,” beginning Sept. 8. “This arrangement does not impact FEMA’s workforce or disrupt any of FEMA’s normal operations. FEMA has previously supported Department and interagency activities in the designated conference space. No FEMA personnel or operational resources are being diverted to support the DHS activities,” said DHS in the statement to ACoM. The agency noted that immigration court hearings are administered by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Congressman denied access Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, and the the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has oversight over FEMA, said at a Sept. 29 AILA press briefing that he arrived at the DC FEMA office building Sept. 23, expecting to conduct congressional oversight. Instead, the congressman — who had brought along staff from his committee and staffers from the office of Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois — found himself standing outside an unmarked set of rooms that had been converted into an immigration court. He was told by officers at the building that he could not enter. “I indicated that I was a member of Congress, and I was here to provide oversight and to enter and to see this series of rooms,” said Stanton. “They said no, I was not allowed to enter. They handed me a small piece of paper that indicated an email that I should use if I had any questions about the policy. Obviously, that was completely and totally unacceptable.” Judge says courts must be open to the public ”We were working the phones for several hours, trying to get access,” said Stanton, noting that he and congressional staffers called all the agencies involved, including FEMA, ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “I was shocked because each agency blamed the other,” Stanton said. “It’s FEMA’s building, it’s happening in their office, but FEMA said they had no authority to dictate who could enter into the impromptu courtroom area. Same thing with ICE, same thing with EOIR.” Eventually, a DHS official determined that Stanton could enter — but that Congressional staff could not. The following morning, Stanton returned. This time, he was permitted to enter more quickly, although congressional staff again were barred. In its statement to ACoM, DHS confirmed that Stanton was able to enter the makeshift court in DC, but noted further: “Access to EOIR hearing spaces is governed by EOIR policy, applicable federal requirements, and facility-specific security procedures.” Remote hearings Inside the court, Stanton said he found a waiting area and a conference room where immigration judges appeared by video. On the first day, he said, no one appeared for court during the 20 to 30 minutes he was inside. On the second day, there was a list of people scheduled for hearings — but none of them appeared. Stanton questioned whether those in deportation proceedings had been sufficiently informed of the change of venue. The congressman said he watched several hearings remotely conducted by judges and heard attorneys arguing cases. At one point, someone told the judge that a congressman from Arizona wanted to observe the proceeding. The judge’s response, Stanton said, was unequivocal: A member of Congress — like any member of the public — should be permitted to observe. “The judge verbally indicated that there should be no stopping citizens from entering this courtroom,” said the congressman. “Which I found very interesting in light of how incredibly difficult it was for even me as a member of Congress to get in.” ACoM asked Stanton whether the people adjudicating cases remotely in the DC pop-up courtroom were actually judges or DHS staff. “I can only speak to what I saw myself. In the time I spent in the room in which I saw the judge interact with other attorneys, it was clearly an immigration judge. I believe he was robed as a judge.” But he said he could not speak to whether other types of adjudicators were presiding over proceedings at the pop-up locations. ‘Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this?’ Stanton and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland — ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee — have since written to federal agencies, including DHS, USCIS, and the Justice Department. In their Sept. 28 letter, the two congressmen asked why a FEMA facility is being used for immigration proceedings and whether people are receiving adequate notice of hearings. “Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this, at a time when we’re still in hurricane season, at a time when natural disasters are a real problem, and all of a sudden, FEMA now has all sorts of extra office room for this procedure?” Stanton queried at the AILA news briefing. Greg Chen, AILA’s senior director for government relations, said immigration hearings are also being conducted in DHS-controlled space on the third floor of the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, rather than the traditional immigration courtroom on the 12th floor. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York has conducted regular visits to the 12th floor courthouse. But he was blocked from entering the third-floor space, according to Chen. “These dramatic policy changes are creating chaos, threatening due process, and are making significant impacts on people’s lives, and it’s happening in secret,” he said. DHS appears to be targeting people without attorneys The lack of transparency is particularly troubling because the unusual courts appear to be handling large numbers of people who do not have attorneys, said Kel White, associate director for public education and training at the Acacia Center for Justice and chair-elect of AILA’s Washington, D.C., chapter. “We only found out about these hidden courts because attorneys in our chapter were mistakenly sent those notices,” White said. “Had those errors not occurred, many members of our community here would not have known that these proceedings were even taking place.” White said that was a sharp departure from the way new immigration court locations historically have been established — with stakeholder meetings, advance notice and information about which cases would be assigned to which court. Instead, she said, attorneys and immigrants are struggling to find the new locations and, in some cases, even determine when their hearings are taking place. The ‘Where’s Waldo’ of immigration courts At the FEMA site, Google Maps directed White to a different building. There was no signage identifying the immigration court. “For me to find that court itself was like playing hide and seek or the Where’s Waldo of courts,” White said. “But that’s a children’s game, and this is life with real consequences to the people who are entering that court, where failing to appear can mean deportation. And for many people, that can mean life or death if they’re applying for asylum or any other form of fear-based protection.” White described one couple who had driven from Baltimore to Washington for a hearing. The judge appeared by video from Baltimore, while the immigrant appeared in Washington DC. White was unable to enter the courtroom to provide representation. Instead, she sat with the person’s spouse at a McDonald’s while they waited. “She’d been in this country for over 10 years, and had suffered all this hardship, and here we were sitting, waiting to see if her partner was going to come back out of that courtroom,” White said. “It’s not even absurdity anymore. It’s starting to become cruelty.” Disappeared in the detainee locator The hearings are unfolding alongside another change that immigration attorneys say is making it increasingly difficult to represent detained clients: ICE’s online detainee locator system is no longer reliably disclosing the whereabouts of some people with final deportation orders. Those with final orders of removal waiting for travel documents may not appear in the detainee locator. Moreover, the ICE detainee locator has not listed the US among its drop-down list of countries of origin. Theoretically, ICE would not detain US citizens. But a ProPublica investigation released Oct. 6 found that 506 US citizens have been detained by ICE since President Donald Trump took office. 70 of them were children. 36 US citizens were detained for over a day, without the ability to contact their family or an attorney. ‘Where is my client?’ Ruby Powers, founder and managing attorney of Powers Law Group in Texas, said attorneys depend on the locator to find detained clients, communicate with them and determine where to file legal challenges. “If one of my detainees gets moved from, say, Conroe, Montgomery Processing Center, that’s Southern District. But if they get moved to El Paso, that’s Western District,” Powers said. “We can’t file a habeas if we don’t know where they’re detained.” Powers described a recent case in which a client disappeared from the locator system for several hours. She eventually learned the person was still detained — but was effectively “off the record.” “It was extremely confusing,” she said. “In fact, even the judge thought that the client was no longer detained and made a ruling based on the judge not being there. So this is basically a violation of our ability to represent our clients.” “These policies are deeply unfair, and they should frighten Americans,” said Chen. “ICE is disappearing people in the detention system. Hearings are being held in unmarked, hidden locations out of view from the public and from Congress.” “And importantly, the people being harmed are certainly not the worst of the worst. They increasingly include people who already have an application pending for legal protection, might be asylum seekers, might have a work permit, and are going through the proper application process that Congress set forth in law,” he said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

US Justice Department says FBI, ICE agents will not serve as poll monitors in midterms

Oct 28 (Reuters) - The US Department of Justice said late on Wednesday that agents and employees from the FBI and ​the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will not be ‌serving as monitors during the midterm elections. Here are some details: Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. In a court filing in a federal court case brought by civil ​rights organization NAACP, which advocates for racial justice and ​rights for Black Americans, the Justice Department said ⁠election monitors will not be acting as law enforcement ​personnel while monitoring The poll monitors will mainly observe polling places, ​take notes and will be prohibited from carrying firearms, the filing said The Justice Department said monitors have been trained not to interfere ​in voting and to follow state and local rules, ​consistent with past practice While employees from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Bureau ‌of ⁠Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will serve as monitors, the Justice Department said no FBI or ICE employees will serve as monitors The filing came ​after the ​NAACP sued to bar ⁠prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel from serving as monitors, arguing the Trump administration's ​plans amount to voter intimidation The Trump administration ​has taken ⁠an increasingly aggressive approach to election oversight, pressing states for voter-registration data and arguing stricter measures are needed to ensure public ⁠confidence ​in the vote Some officials told Reuters this ​month that they are preparing for potential federal interference in the midterm ​elections For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Democrats plan to throw the gauntlet at Mullin in the next Congress

A top priority for Democrats if they get more power in Congress in November: Forcing the Trump administration’s controversial and unpopular immigration crackdown back in the headlines. And one of the people they plan to go after hard is Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin — the former lawmaker who was brought into the role in part because he was seen as someone who could play well with Congress, unlike former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. A House Democratic aide said that committees plan to look at how DHS under Mullin has failed to deploy body cameras to many immigration agents, allowed dismal conditions at immigration facilities and failed to cooperate with the department’s Inspector General. “He owns that,” the aide emphasized. They were granted anonymity to speak freely about evolving legislative preparations ahead of November. Other Democrats plan to take him to task over the Oct. 12 ICE raid on the D.C. residence of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Even if Democrats are only able to issue subpoenas and produce reports, that could be enough to force DHS back into the headlines — undermining a major goal of Mullin’s: Keeping unpopular immigration enforcement operations away from public attention. That would likely worsen the political pains the White House is experiencing on immigration. Voters in both parties have soured on the president’s ambitious immigration crackdown after a series of controversies, including the deaths of several American citizens following encounters with immigration officers. “We will investigate the administration weaponizing DHS against Americans, its out-of-control immigration policies, and its blatantly corrupt self-dealing. The American people expect nothing less, and we will deliver,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who is poised to chair the House Homeland Security Committee in the next Congress. While Democrats want to investigate the full breadth of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including changes to immigration courts and efforts to throttle legal immigration to the United States, multiple aides and lawmakers told POLITICO that much of the action on Capitol Hill will center around deportations that appear to have happened without due process, aggressive practices in arrests and conditions at detentions facilities. Democrats also plan to review how DHS has spent a historic influx of funds from a series of reconciliation bills — including controversial purchases of jets for use by Noem, warehouses intended to operate as detention facilities and other department acquisitions that may have benefitted administration allies. As part of this push, they plan to also pull in a raft of lower-level and former officials for testimony. At a Monday press conference in Long Beach, California, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, stressed that investigations into “abuses of ICE and DHS” will rank high among committee priorities — alongside investigations into the Trump family’s business dealings, disgraced deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and “corporate corruption.” “What has been happening is horrific,” Garcia said. “But folks like Stephen MIller, Donald Trump and the horrific people they have in power to do this harm think they can get away with frankly these crimes and this inhumanity … you will be held accountable, you will be held investigated.” “There is no moving forward without justice,” he added. Other potential House committee chairs are also homing in on immigration enforcement as a top area for immediate congressional oversight after the midterms. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as well as the House and Senate Judiciary committees also have jurisdiction over immigration operations. Aides say the incoming chairs of all of these committees are planning on working together to conduct oversight of DHS. “This is a team sport,” said the House Democratic aide. “One of the Democratic campaign’s overwhelming themes has been accountability, and committees have an appetite to do more oversight work. So this is going to be a multicommittee effort.” That said, the number of committees that are planning immigration investigations could result in a morass of similar probes if House Democratic leadership fails to manage committee chairs with differing priorities and personal styles. Republicans already experienced this during the Biden administration, when the chairs of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees did not clearly coordinate in their oversight of immigration policy and often held similar hearings with limited results. Much of Democrats’ final approach will depend on the outcome of the midterm elections. While it is expected that Democrats will retake control of the House, if they also take back the Senate they could exert even more pressure on the administration by throttling the confirmation of nominees and leverage more resources for investigations. Watch: The Conversation Can Angie Nixon prove Democrats can win in Florida? But even just Democratic control of the House, which is seen in Washington as an all but certain outcome, would give Democratic committee chairs the ability to issue subpoenas for administration officials to testify before their committees and produce documents of import for committee investigations. The House could also always move to impeach the president and other top officials, though Democrats across the party’s ideological divides have for now ruled out a third impeachment of Trump, since it would likely fail to secure enough Republican Senate votes to result in his removal from office. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that “political attacks will not deter DHS from carrying out its lawful mission.” “Congressional oversight should not be used as a vehicle to obstruct the department’s ability to secure the border, remove dangerous criminal aliens, disrupt transnational criminal organizations, and defend the homeland,” DHS added. House Democrats also plan to focus on Noem’s tenure. Garcia confirmed in an interview on MS Now last week that his committee will be scrutinizing her tenure, even though she and former DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski have both left the department. But many Democratic lawmakers are incensed about actions taken under Mullin’s tenure, including the raid on Omar’s residence. “We are going to drag Markwayne Mullin into the Judiciary committee and give him the full Jack Smith treatment as a result of these raids,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview earlier this month on MSNow, referring to the former special counsel who led federal prosecutions against Trump. Her comments indicate that some Democratic lawmakers want to make a spectacle out of Mullin. Republicans regularly dragged Smith to testify before congressional committees as they sought to tar investigations into the president’s alleged criminal conduct. Democrats are also eager to use their subpoena and investigative powers to compel testimony from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who wields considerable influence over the administration’s immigration policy, and border czar Tom Homan, who is accused of taking a cash bribe from a major government contractor. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that “Democrats have no agenda to improve the lives of Americans — their only agenda is to continue to demonize ICE law enforcement and continue their decade long witch hunt against President Trump and his administration.” Homan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Oversight work is a hallmark of divided government, especially since the party in control of Congress is often unlikely to secure presidential support for major pieces of messaging legislation. But parties have at times squandered those opportunities. Committees are trying to put resources in place ahead of the elections to speed up this work, since investigations inherently take time as staff interview witnesses and pursue relevant documents and records. As the midterm elections approach, Democrats poised to lead committees with relevant jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security have begun staffing up in anticipation of a change in control of Congress. New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan, is poised to take the gavel of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee should her party prevail in November. Hassan, who already began probing contracting decisions at DHS from her more limited perch as the top Democratic senator on the Joint Economic Commission, is hiring staff and preparing to continue her oversight work atop the Senate Homeland Security panel in the next Congress. For now, House Democrats — mainly Garcia and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is poised to take over the Judiciary Committee — are vowing they will coordinate their efforts and work together. “We view this as a responsibility that belongs to every committee and every member of congress … this is just an overwhelming mountain of corruption and authoritarianism that we face,” Raskin said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Court ruling fails to end wait for thousands of immigrants stuck abroad without visas

Late last year, Dustin Hoffman and his wife Gloria started the paperwork to secure a visa for her to live in the U.S. The couple, along with their 5-year-old daughter Chaya and Hoffman's 12-year-old step son Israel, lived together in Argentina, where Hoffman had moved in 2013 after doing a deployment with the U.S. Army in Iraq. "My daughter is growing up and she's very smart and my stepson he's very smart," Hoffman said. "But the resources in Argentina for an autistic child and the school system in Argentina … I don't know. I just feel like I needed to give my daughter the same opportunities that I had growing up." Sponsor Message People wait outside the Miami Immigration Court on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026 in Miami, Fla. Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR Immigration New immigration court tactic leads to huge lines and chaos in Miami But nearly a year later, the kids and Gloria are stuck in Argentina in bureaucratic limbo due to continuing delays in the processing of their visa. That's because this January the Trump administration banned the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries. Many of the migrants were already in the process of getting a visa. Some already had the visa approved; they were just waiting to get the physical visa delivered to them. Hoffman's wife is from Colombia, one of the countries on the list. A poster calling on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to get out of the community hangs on a door in the Little Village neighborhood on January 22, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. National New report shows the economic toll of ICE raids A federal judge this August ordered the ban to be lifted, but Hoffman's family still has not gotten their visa, and the State Department continues to ask them to provide additional evidence to prove they have the financial means to live in the U.S. without becoming a public charge. Attorneys representing migrants say the Hoffman family's case is emblematic of a wider problem: They say the Trump administration is not complying with the federal court order and is instead slow-walking the processing of the visas. "So while technically the ban doesn't exist, it doesn't matter practically if people are still not being able to get their green card interviews or have their interviews not be finished and not get their immigrant visa stamps foils and be able to come into the United States," said Alexis Axelrad, the president elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Sponsor Message A new training creates additional delays The visa ban affected more than 280,000 immigrants who had applied for visas by the time the policy went into effect in January. According to an analysis by the libertarian think-tank Cato Institute, the ban targeted thousands of close family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, including spouses and minor children. The Cato report called it "one of the most extreme legal immigration policies in U.S. history." Now stuck in their countries unable to come to the U.S., many are rethinking what to do. The State Department declined to comment for this story, telling NPR "the matter referenced is subject to pending litigation." On its website, the State Department acknowledges the visa ban is no longer in effect due to the court ruling. This photo taken on June 3, 2026, shows an entrance to the U.S. Department of State building, in Washington, D.C. This photo taken on June 3, 2026, shows an entrance to the U.S. Department of State building, in Washington, D.C. Li Rui/Xinhua via Getty Images The agency told NPR in August it had paused the processing of visas as it launched an in-depth "training program" for embassies and consulates on identifying immigrants who could become a burden on taxpayers — a public charge. This means even immigrants with visas approved would have to go through additional screening. People line up before their hearings at the New York Federal Plaza Immigration Court in October 2025. Immigration 'Hidden tribunals': Immigration court due process in tumult with new locations This pause is uncommon, a former State Department consular officer told NPR. She asked not to be identified because she fears it could affect her job prospects. "I've never seen a substantial pause on visa processing … I really haven't," the former consular officer said. "The department is doing this because this is what the policy is from the president … to reduce illegal immigration, remigrate people and only accept refugees from South Africa." But families such as the Hoffmans are stuck in limbo. He says he misses his daughter, stepson, and wife every day. He said his daughter cries "all the time" and asks for her father. His wife is overwhelmed. "Let me put it this way: Our family is a family. We need to be there for each other," Hoffman said. "Just like any family, it's not functioning very well while we're separated." Sponsor Message The brightest is left behind During his first term, President Trump said he wanted to attract the brightest immigrants to come to the U.S. Right-wing organizations, including the America First Policy Institute, have also endorsed a "merit-based" immigration system. "America's immigration system should prioritize immigrants with education, skills, and well-paying jobs waiting for them in the U.S. because these individuals are most likely to contribute to America's society and economy, benefitting all Americans," the organization wrote in March 2026. But the battle over visa processing has affected many immigrants who fall into the high-performing category. One of them is Dr. Fernando Lizcano, a Colombian national whose research focuses on major cardiovascular health challenges in the U.S., including obesity. Fer Courtesy of Dr. Fernando Lizcano He applied for an EB-1A visa, which is reserved for immigrants "of extraordinary ability," including "an outstanding professor or researcher," according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "My intention is to continue with my academic biomedical research in the United States," Lizcano told NPR from his office in Bogotá. "(I) have been exploring opportunities also where I could combine all my experience in endocrinology with molecular biology, translational research." Because USCIS deemed him qualified for an EB-1A, all that was left for him was to apply for the visa itself and get it stamped in his passport. But he is still in Colombia, awaiting for the State Department's final approval. "This is not fair," Lizcano said. The waiting game is taking an emotional toll on many of the immigrants — and their loved ones — whose visas are now up in the air. Herlain, who asked NPR to withhold her last name, poses for a portrait at her home in North Lauderdale, Fla. Immigration For thousands of Haitians in the U.S., end of protected status brings fear, grief and defiance Hoffman, the U.S. veteran awaiting his wife's visa to be approved, is worried about his own mental health. He told NPR his doctors have increased his psychiatric medicines. "I was OK before all this started happening," he said. He works as an Uber driver, and with Trump's war in Iran, gas prices have skyrocketed, cutting into his income. He's struggling to pay both his mortgage in the U.S., and rent in Argentina for his family. "We're living on a dream and a prayer right now," Hoffman said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Shock gloves purchased by ICE cause pain, compliance and fear, Army study found

The shock gloves immigration agents could soon use to control detainees and protesters worked so powerfully during a military exercise that participants felt intense pain, stopped fighting immediately and feared additional exposures, according to a previously unreleased Army study. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders were aware of the findings before signing a $16.7 million contract to purchase 6,000 pairs of shock gloves in August, according to records obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight and shared with The Associated Press. READ MORE: 'A perfect tool for abuse.' Why experts are concerned about ICE's $17 million electric shock gloves contract The shocks had a profound impact on Army employees who played the role of combative prisoners during the exercise, which took place at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas in October 2024. The participants, several of whom were large-statured men, stopped resisting seconds after officers applied shocks by touching gloves to their skin, and were left with "fatigue, soreness and excessive apprehensiveness to being shocked again," the study found. "After experiencing the effects of the GLOVE, ... participants stated just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply," the authors wrote. Watchdog says gloves cause pain and raise safety concerns ICE has called the gloves "distraction and de-escalation devices" that will be safer than other non-lethal options to subdue targets for arrest and deportation and protesters who create civil disturbances. The agency has argued the rapid compliance they cause will keep officers safer and prevent incidents from requiring potentially lethal force. But critics have warned the gloves will give ICE another weapon to intimidate and brutalize people even as the agency is under fire for excessive force that has left a trail of deaths and injuries across the nation. The gloves, they note, are easy to discharge, do not leave a mark and have not been extensively used in settings outside of jails. The manufacturer warns they should not be used on high-risk populations such as kids, pregnant women or disabled people. "The military assessment in ICE's own files shows that these gloves can cause 'intense pain' and force compliance. It does not establish that they are safe," said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight. "Everyone should be alarmed that ICE is preparing to deploy a tool designed to inflict, at best, intense pain, without showing that it is safe for the people who will be subjected to it." ICE released the study and other documents to American Oversight as part of the group's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency seeking records related to its use of force. Army study found shock gloves triggered 'immediate' compliance The military prison study assessed whether the gloves could be used effectively to forcibly remove combative prisoners from their cells, to respond to disturbances in common areas and to transport uncooperative inmates. Role-playing employees conducted several scenarios with and without the gloves to test their impact, including violent encounters in which inmates were to fight as hard as they could. The study found the devices "increased the efficiency" of teams carrying out forced cell extractions and responding to disturbances by reducing the length of physical encounters, keeping guards from becoming exhausted and preventing injuries. They did not "significantly change" the time it took to control inmates during escorts but required less effort. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. Enter your email address Enter your email address "GLOVE provides a boost in confidence to smaller or less trained members," the study found. "Inmate compliance was immediate" compared to other methods, it added. The electric jolt does not cause the body to freeze like a Taser shock does, but instead "works by overloading the peripheral nerve endings" of the skin to cause pain, the study said. Participants who were wet or had oil on their skin described even more powerful shocks, with one reporting discomfort for 30 minutes afterward. Senator says ICE hasn't responded to demand for details on glove use ICE's contract requires the manufacturer, Compliant Technologies LLC, to deliver the gloves within six months. Its owner, Jeff Niklaus, said he was unavailable for an interview, citing a busy workload. White House border czar Tom Homan has said it could "be awhile" before the gloves are in the field because ICE is still ironing out training and policy issues. A statement released Tuesday by ICE did not address questions about the study and the status of the rollout, but said "officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics." READ MORE: AP report: ICE plans to give its officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada said ICE has not responded to an Aug. 27 letter in which she and 15 other Democratic Senate colleagues called for ICE to abandon its plan to buy the gloves or explain how they would be used and managed to avoid abuse. She said she still wants answers. "Without ICE's responses to legitimate questions from 16 United States Senators, the American public is being left in the dark about how these electric shock gloves are being deployed and what, if any, training the agents who use them have received," she said.

DHS Is Using FEMA Buildings as Pop-up Immigration Courts, Denying Public Access

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has been using federal office buildings in several cities to operate as makeshift immigration courts, with judges deciding cases via Zoom video, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Two such courts have been confirmed in Washington, DC and in Manhattan, New York. Additional locations are being considered in Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; Denver, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. Notably, the two pop-up courts in Washington DC and Manhattan bear no signage indicating they are immigration courts. And — in violation of existing policy — the courts are not open to the public or attorneys. Immigration courts and courtrooms are generally open to the public, without prior registration. In response to American Community Media’s emailed request for information, DHS said it began using the FEMA Headquarters Conference Center to conduct “critical operations,” beginning Sept. 8. “This arrangement does not impact FEMA’s workforce or disrupt any of FEMA’s normal operations. FEMA has previously supported Department and interagency activities in the designated conference space. No FEMA personnel or operational resources are being diverted to support the DHS activities,” said DHS in the statement to ACoM. The agency noted that immigration court hearings are administered by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Congressman denied access Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, and the the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has oversight over FEMA, said at a Sept. 29 AILA press briefing that he arrived at the DC FEMA office building Sept. 23, expecting to conduct congressional oversight. Instead, the congressman — who had brought along staff from his committee and staffers from the office of Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois — found himself standing outside an unmarked set of rooms that had been converted into an immigration court. He was told by officers at the building that he could not enter. “I indicated that I was a member of Congress, and I was here to provide oversight and to enter and to see this series of rooms,” said Stanton. “They said no, I was not allowed to enter. They handed me a small piece of paper that indicated an email that I should use if I had any questions about the policy. Obviously, that was completely and totally unacceptable.” Judge says courts must be open to the public ”We were working the phones for several hours, trying to get access,” said Stanton, noting that he and congressional staffers called all the agencies involved, including FEMA, ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “I was shocked because each agency blamed the other,” Stanton said. “It’s FEMA’s building, it’s happening in their office, but FEMA said they had no authority to dictate who could enter into the impromptu courtroom area. Same thing with ICE, same thing with EOIR.” Eventually, a DHS official determined that Stanton could enter — but that Congressional staff could not. The following morning, Stanton returned. This time, he was permitted to enter more quickly, although congressional staff again were barred. In its statement to ACoM, DHS confirmed that Stanton was able to enter the makeshift court in DC, but noted further: “Access to EOIR hearing spaces is governed by EOIR policy, applicable federal requirements, and facility-specific security procedures.” Remote hearings Inside the court, Stanton said he found a waiting area and a conference room where immigration judges appeared by video. On the first day, he said, no one appeared for court during the 20 to 30 minutes he was inside. On the second day, there was a list of people scheduled for hearings — but none of them appeared. Stanton questioned whether those in deportation proceedings had been sufficiently informed of the change of venue. The congressman said he watched several hearings remotely conducted by judges and heard attorneys arguing cases. At one point, someone told the judge that a congressman from Arizona wanted to observe the proceeding. The judge’s response, Stanton said, was unequivocal: A member of Congress — like any member of the public — should be permitted to observe. “The judge verbally indicated that there should be no stopping citizens from entering this courtroom,” said the congressman. “Which I found very interesting in light of how incredibly difficult it was for even me as a member of Congress to get in.” ACoM asked Stanton whether the people adjudicating cases remotely in the DC pop-up courtroom were actually judges or DHS staff. “I can only speak to what I saw myself. In the time I spent in the room in which I saw the judge interact with other attorneys, it was clearly an immigration judge. I believe he was robed as a judge.” But he said he could not speak to whether other types of adjudicators were presiding over proceedings at the pop-up locations. ‘Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this?’ Stanton and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland — ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee — have since written to federal agencies, including DHS, USCIS, and the Justice Department. In their Sept. 28 letter, the two congressmen asked why a FEMA facility is being used for immigration proceedings and whether people are receiving adequate notice of hearings. “Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this, at a time when we’re still in hurricane season, at a time when natural disasters are a real problem, and all of a sudden, FEMA now has all sorts of extra office room for this procedure?” Stanton queried at the AILA news briefing. Greg Chen, AILA’s senior director for government relations, said immigration hearings are also being conducted in DHS-controlled space on the third floor of the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, rather than the traditional immigration courtroom on the 12th floor. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York has conducted regular visits to the 12th floor courthouse. But he was blocked from entering the third-floor space, according to Chen. “These dramatic policy changes are creating chaos, threatening due process, and are making significant impacts on people’s lives, and it’s happening in secret,” he said. DHS appears to be targeting people without attorneys The lack of transparency is particularly troubling because the unusual courts appear to be handling large numbers of people who do not have attorneys, said Kel White, associate director for public education and training at the Acacia Center for Justice and chair-elect of AILA’s Washington, D.C., chapter. “We only found out about these hidden courts because attorneys in our chapter were mistakenly sent those notices,” White said. “Had those errors not occurred, many members of our community here would not have known that these proceedings were even taking place.” White said that was a sharp departure from the way new immigration court locations historically have been established — with stakeholder meetings, advance notice and information about which cases would be assigned to which court. Instead, she said, attorneys and immigrants are struggling to find the new locations and, in some cases, even determine when their hearings are taking place. The ‘Where’s Waldo’ of immigration courts At the FEMA site, Google Maps directed White to a different building. There was no signage identifying the immigration court. “For me to find that court itself was like playing hide and seek or the Where’s Waldo of courts,” White said. “But that’s a children’s game, and this is life with real consequences to the people who are entering that court, where failing to appear can mean deportation. And for many people, that can mean life or death if they’re applying for asylum or any other form of fear-based protection.” White described one couple who had driven from Baltimore to Washington for a hearing. The judge appeared by video from Baltimore, while the immigrant appeared in Washington DC. White was unable to enter the courtroom to provide representation. Instead, she sat with the person’s spouse at a McDonald’s while they waited. “She’d been in this country for over 10 years, and had suffered all this hardship, and here we were sitting, waiting to see if her partner was going to come back out of that courtroom,” White said. “It’s not even absurdity anymore. It’s starting to become cruelty.” Disappeared in the detainee locator The hearings are unfolding alongside another change that immigration attorneys say is making it increasingly difficult to represent detained clients: ICE’s online detainee locator system is no longer reliably disclosing the whereabouts of some people with final deportation orders. Those with final orders of removal waiting for travel documents may not appear in the detainee locator. Moreover, the ICE detainee locator has not listed the US among its drop-down list of countries of origin. Theoretically, ICE would not detain US citizens. But a ProPublica investigation released Oct. 6 found that 506 US citizens have been detained by ICE since President Donald Trump took office. 70 of them were children. 36 US citizens were detained for over a day, without the ability to contact their family or an attorney. ‘Where is my client?’ Ruby Powers, founder and managing attorney of Powers Law Group in Texas, said attorneys depend on the locator to find detained clients, communicate with them and determine where to file legal challenges. “If one of my detainees gets moved from, say, Conroe, Montgomery Processing Center, that’s Southern District. But if they get moved to El Paso, that’s Western District,” Powers said. “We can’t file a habeas if we don’t know where they’re detained.” Powers described a recent case in which a client disappeared from the locator system for several hours. She eventually learned the person was still detained — but was effectively “off the record.” “It was extremely confusing,” she said. “In fact, even the judge thought that the client was no longer detained and made a ruling based on the judge not being there. So this is basically a violation of our ability to represent our clients.” “These policies are deeply unfair, and they should frighten Americans,” said Chen. “ICE is disappearing people in the detention system. Hearings are being held in unmarked, hidden locations out of view from the public and from Congress.” “And importantly, the people being harmed are certainly not the worst of the worst. They increasingly include people who already have an application pending for legal protection, might be asylum seekers, might have a work permit, and are going through the proper application process that Congress set forth in law,” he said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

DHS Is Using FEMA Buildings as Pop-up Immigration Courts, Denying Public Access

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has been using federal office buildings in several cities to operate as makeshift immigration courts, with judges deciding cases via Zoom video, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Two such courts have been confirmed in Washington, DC and in Manhattan, New York. Additional locations are being considered in Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; Denver, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. Notably, the two pop-up courts in Washington DC and Manhattan bear no signage indicating they are immigration courts. And — in violation of existing policy — the courts are not open to the public or attorneys. Immigration courts and courtrooms are generally open to the public, without prior registration. In response to American Community Media’s emailed request for information, DHS said it began using the FEMA Headquarters Conference Center to conduct “critical operations,” beginning Sept. 8. “This arrangement does not impact FEMA’s workforce or disrupt any of FEMA’s normal operations. FEMA has previously supported Department and interagency activities in the designated conference space. No FEMA personnel or operational resources are being diverted to support the DHS activities,” said DHS in the statement to ACoM. The agency noted that immigration court hearings are administered by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Congressman denied access Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, and the the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has oversight over FEMA, said at a Sept. 29 AILA press briefing that he arrived at the DC FEMA office building Sept. 23, expecting to conduct congressional oversight. Instead, the congressman — who had brought along staff from his committee and staffers from the office of Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois — found himself standing outside an unmarked set of rooms that had been converted into an immigration court. He was told by officers at the building that he could not enter. “I indicated that I was a member of Congress, and I was here to provide oversight and to enter and to see this series of rooms,” said Stanton. “They said no, I was not allowed to enter. They handed me a small piece of paper that indicated an email that I should use if I had any questions about the policy. Obviously, that was completely and totally unacceptable.” Judge says courts must be open to the public ”We were working the phones for several hours, trying to get access,” said Stanton, noting that he and congressional staffers called all the agencies involved, including FEMA, ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “I was shocked because each agency blamed the other,” Stanton said. “It’s FEMA’s building, it’s happening in their office, but FEMA said they had no authority to dictate who could enter into the impromptu courtroom area. Same thing with ICE, same thing with EOIR.” Eventually, a DHS official determined that Stanton could enter — but that Congressional staff could not. The following morning, Stanton returned. This time, he was permitted to enter more quickly, although congressional staff again were barred. In its statement to ACoM, DHS confirmed that Stanton was able to enter the makeshift court in DC, but noted further: “Access to EOIR hearing spaces is governed by EOIR policy, applicable federal requirements, and facility-specific security procedures.” Remote hearings Inside the court, Stanton said he found a waiting area and a conference room where immigration judges appeared by video. On the first day, he said, no one appeared for court during the 20 to 30 minutes he was inside. On the second day, there was a list of people scheduled for hearings — but none of them appeared. Stanton questioned whether those in deportation proceedings had been sufficiently informed of the change of venue. The congressman said he watched several hearings remotely conducted by judges and heard attorneys arguing cases. At one point, someone told the judge that a congressman from Arizona wanted to observe the proceeding. The judge’s response, Stanton said, was unequivocal: A member of Congress — like any member of the public — should be permitted to observe. “The judge verbally indicated that there should be no stopping citizens from entering this courtroom,” said the congressman. “Which I found very interesting in light of how incredibly difficult it was for even me as a member of Congress to get in.” ACoM asked Stanton whether the people adjudicating cases remotely in the DC pop-up courtroom were actually judges or DHS staff. “I can only speak to what I saw myself. In the time I spent in the room in which I saw the judge interact with other attorneys, it was clearly an immigration judge. I believe he was robed as a judge.” But he said he could not speak to whether other types of adjudicators were presiding over proceedings at the pop-up locations. ‘Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this?’ Stanton and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland — ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee — have since written to federal agencies, including DHS, USCIS, and the Justice Department. In their Sept. 28 letter, the two congressmen asked why a FEMA facility is being used for immigration proceedings and whether people are receiving adequate notice of hearings. “Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this, at a time when we’re still in hurricane season, at a time when natural disasters are a real problem, and all of a sudden, FEMA now has all sorts of extra office room for this procedure?” Stanton queried at the AILA news briefing. Greg Chen, AILA’s senior director for government relations, said immigration hearings are also being conducted in DHS-controlled space on the third floor of the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, rather than the traditional immigration courtroom on the 12th floor. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York has conducted regular visits to the 12th floor courthouse. But he was blocked from entering the third-floor space, according to Chen. “These dramatic policy changes are creating chaos, threatening due process, and are making significant impacts on people’s lives, and it’s happening in secret,” he said. DHS appears to be targeting people without attorneys The lack of transparency is particularly troubling because the unusual courts appear to be handling large numbers of people who do not have attorneys, said Kel White, associate director for public education and training at the Acacia Center for Justice and chair-elect of AILA’s Washington, D.C., chapter. “We only found out about these hidden courts because attorneys in our chapter were mistakenly sent those notices,” White said. “Had those errors not occurred, many members of our community here would not have known that these proceedings were even taking place.” White said that was a sharp departure from the way new immigration court locations historically have been established — with stakeholder meetings, advance notice and information about which cases would be assigned to which court. Instead, she said, attorneys and immigrants are struggling to find the new locations and, in some cases, even determine when their hearings are taking place. The ‘Where’s Waldo’ of immigration courts At the FEMA site, Google Maps directed White to a different building. There was no signage identifying the immigration court. “For me to find that court itself was like playing hide and seek or the Where’s Waldo of courts,” White said. “But that’s a children’s game, and this is life with real consequences to the people who are entering that court, where failing to appear can mean deportation. And for many people, that can mean life or death if they’re applying for asylum or any other form of fear-based protection.” White described one couple who had driven from Baltimore to Washington for a hearing. The judge appeared by video from Baltimore, while the immigrant appeared in Washington DC. White was unable to enter the courtroom to provide representation. Instead, she sat with the person’s spouse at a McDonald’s while they waited. “She’d been in this country for over 10 years, and had suffered all this hardship, and here we were sitting, waiting to see if her partner was going to come back out of that courtroom,” White said. “It’s not even absurdity anymore. It’s starting to become cruelty.” Disappeared in the detainee locator The hearings are unfolding alongside another change that immigration attorneys say is making it increasingly difficult to represent detained clients: ICE’s online detainee locator system is no longer reliably disclosing the whereabouts of some people with final deportation orders. Those with final orders of removal waiting for travel documents may not appear in the detainee locator. Moreover, the ICE detainee locator has not listed the US among its drop-down list of countries of origin. Theoretically, ICE would not detain US citizens. But a ProPublica investigation released Oct. 6 found that 506 US citizens have been detained by ICE since President Donald Trump took office. 70 of them were children. 36 US citizens were detained for over a day, without the ability to contact their family or an attorney. ‘Where is my client?’ Ruby Powers, founder and managing attorney of Powers Law Group in Texas, said attorneys depend on the locator to find detained clients, communicate with them and determine where to file legal challenges. “If one of my detainees gets moved from, say, Conroe, Montgomery Processing Center, that’s Southern District. But if they get moved to El Paso, that’s Western District,” Powers said. “We can’t file a habeas if we don’t know where they’re detained.” Powers described a recent case in which a client disappeared from the locator system for several hours. She eventually learned the person was still detained — but was effectively “off the record.” “It was extremely confusing,” she said. “In fact, even the judge thought that the client was no longer detained and made a ruling based on the judge not being there. So this is basically a violation of our ability to represent our clients.” “These policies are deeply unfair, and they should frighten Americans,” said Chen. “ICE is disappearing people in the detention system. Hearings are being held in unmarked, hidden locations out of view from the public and from Congress.” “And importantly, the people being harmed are certainly not the worst of the worst. They increasingly include people who already have an application pending for legal protection, might be asylum seekers, might have a work permit, and are going through the proper application process that Congress set forth in law,” he said For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Immigrants from Ukraine and Sudan to retain deportation protections for now

Immigrants from Ukraine and Sudan enrolled in the Temporary Protected Status policy will be able to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation for the time being, even though their protections were set to expire soon, the Department of Homeland Security told CBS News on Sunday. The TPS protections of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of Sudanese immigrants were officially slated to terminate on Monday. But in statements on Sunday, DHS said final decisions on the fate of the humanitarian immigration programs will "be made at the appropriate time." Until such decisions are announced, DHS added, nationals of Ukraine and Sudan enrolled in the TPS program will "retain protection." The decisions to keep the deportation protections in place, albeit not final, stand in sharp contrast to the Trump administration's broader posture toward TPS programs. Trump administration officials have routinely denounced TPS as a de facto amnesty policy abused by the Biden administration that encourages illegal immigration and that has been extended too often, despite its temporary nature. Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration, as part of its aggressive immigration crackdown, has revoked the TPS protections of more than 1 million immigrants from over a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and Venezuela. The video player is currently playing an ad. The programs for Ukrainian and Sudanese nationals are among a handful of TPS policies that have remained in place nearly two years into President Trump's second term, alongside the protections for tens of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador. Their TPS program was also set to lapse last month, but DHS retained their protections, pending a final announcement. Created in 1990 by Congress, TPS allows the U.S. government to offer a temporary deportation reprieve and work permits to immigrants, illegal and legal alike, who hail from countries facing armed conflict, an environmental disaster or another crisis that makes their return there unsafe. The TPS policy for Ukrainians was first announced by the Biden administration in the spring of 2022, soon after Russia launched its full-blown invasion of Ukraine. As of March 2025, there were more than 100,000 Ukrainians enrolled in TPS, including those allowed into the U.S. under a Biden-era sponsorship policy. The TPS program for Sudan has been around since the late 1990s, with different administrations extending the policy due to the armed conflict and political turmoil that has plagued the African nation. As of March 2025, roughly 1,800 Sudanese nationals had TPS. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Employers Avoid Knee-Jerk Reactions to Green Card Sponsor Bans

Suspensions blocking Microsoft Corp. and other tech companies from sponsoring employees’ green cards are adding a cloud of uncertainty for employers seeking to add or retain foreign talent. But businesses should stay the course on applications for permanent labor certification, or PERM, for now, attorneys are advising. That’s in large part, they say, because the Trump administration hasn’t identified specific violations by the technology companies targeted in the latest crackdown on foreign employment. “The reality, though, is that this action is going to have its intended effect, which is to make employers think twice about hiring and sponsoring foreign workers,” said Heather Frayre, an attorney at Dickinson Wright PLLC. Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling last week announced suspensions of PERM applications for some of the biggest employers of H-1B workers most heavily concentrated in the tech industry, alleging unspecified abuses of visa programs identified in ongoing investigations. While the Department of Labor has taken a leading role in policing the specialty occupation visa program, several high-dollar Justice Department settlements still offer the clearest signal of violations that could land businesses in hot water with federal regulators. A DOJ spokesperson confirmed that the agency opened investigations into Microsoft and Adobe Systems Inc. before they were suspended from the labor certification program, but didn’t share further details. Labor Market Test Companies submitting labor certifications typically do so on behalf of employees already working for them through the H-1B visa program or another temporary status. Submitting PERM applications allows those workers to continuously renew their status until they secure a green card. Although the DOL administers the PERM program, the Justice Department since President Donald Trump’s first term has played an active role in investigating violations of anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act connected to the process. Multiple settlements reached by the DOJ with employers — most recently artificial intelligence company OpenAI — have zeroed in on recruiting and advertising practices that it said put US job applicants at a disadvantage. Before filing a PERM application, businesses must demonstrate that no qualified Americans are interested in applying first. DOJ investigations have found that job postings and application portals didn’t give US workers a real opportunity to apply for roles at companies like Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc. Those enforcement actions still give employers the best insight on compliance without additional guidance from the administration, said Kimberley Robidoux, a partner at WR Immigration. Businesses try as much as possible to treat recruitment for those PERM positions the same as other openings, she said. “We don’t really know how a client should pivot — if they even need to pivot,” Robidoux said regarding labor certifications. Outdated Regulations Vance and other officials who announced the PERM suspensions for the tech and IT staffing firms said those businesses should do more to hire Americans, accusing them of laying off US workers and replacing them with “indentured servitude.” The DOL cited a Justice Department lawsuit against one Silicon Valley firm earlier this year to suspend processing of its labor certifications. Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito has put a spotlight on the program in recent weeks on social media and TV appearances. Even before agency leaders announced the latest suspensions from the program, the Labor Department was preparing to overhaul PERM regulations that haven’t been significantly updated since 2004. A proposed rule focusing on recruitment standards for American workers is currently under White House review. The agency has wide latitude under existing regulations to suspend employers when it learns of possible fraud or misrepresentation until the conclusion of investigations or judicial proceedings, said Adam Cohen, a partner at Siskind Susser PC. But mandates under outdated rules — such as newspaper advertisement requirements cited by Vance last week — can conflict with pressure from DOJ to make PERM recruitment and hiring processes mirror those for other roles, attorneys said. “There are a lot of differences in terms of what the Department of Justice is looking for and what the Department of Labor is mandating,” he said. Upending Worker Plans Microsoft in a statement responding to the suspension said the vast majority of the company’s employees in the US are Americans. Filings in the past year for new H-1B workers — not including extensions — were equal to 1% of its workforce, it said. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg Law on the PERM processing suspension. Adobe, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., Infosys Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Wipro Ltd., HCL Technologies Ltd., or Capgemini SE similarly didn’t respond to requests for comment. Those companies have historically ranked at the top of H-1B users. But many smaller employers that may only sponsor a handful of employees for green cards could be scared out of submitting labor certifications, said Lynn O’Brien, immigration practice leader at Womble Bond Dickinson. “These are the kinds of things that keep immigration attorneys up at night,” she said. “We’re damaging US companies who don’t have big armies of attorneys or the big pocket books of larger organizations.” In addition to compliance challenges for employers, the enforcement actions also could disrupt the lives of many workers who aren’t able to continue working on H-1Bs if PERM applications are blocked, said Alexis Axelrad, a partner at Barst & Mukamal and president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “So it’s not just, oh, these companies are being told, no, you can’t do this,” she said. “Somebody’s life is being upended by this, both the foreign national and who the foreign national works with and for.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

USCIS Forms Update Notice

Good afternoon, We recently updated the following USCIS form(s): Form G-1055, Fee Schedule 10/16/2026 08:26 AM EDT Edition Date: 10/16/26. You can find the edition date at the bottom of the page of Form G-1055, Fee Schedule. For more information, please visit our Forms Updates page. https://www.uscis.gov/g-1055

DHS Is Using FEMA Buildings as Pop-up Immigration Courts, Denying Public Access

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has been using federal office buildings in several cities to operate as makeshift immigration courts, with judges deciding cases via Zoom video, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Two such courts have been confirmed in Washington, DC and in Manhattan, New York. Additional locations are being considered in Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; Denver, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; and Los Angeles, California. Notably, the two pop-up courts in Washington DC and Manhattan bear no signage indicating they are immigration courts. And — in violation of existing policy — the courts are not open to the public or attorneys. Immigration courts and courtrooms are generally open to the public, without prior registration. In response to American Community Media’s emailed request for information, DHS said it began using the FEMA Headquarters Conference Center to conduct “critical operations,” beginning Sept. 8. “This arrangement does not impact FEMA’s workforce or disrupt any of FEMA’s normal operations. FEMA has previously supported Department and interagency activities in the designated conference space. No FEMA personnel or operational resources are being diverted to support the DHS activities,” said DHS in the statement to ACoM. The agency noted that immigration court hearings are administered by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Congressman denied access Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, and the the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has oversight over FEMA, said at a Sept. 29 AILA press briefing that he arrived at the DC FEMA office building Sept. 23, expecting to conduct congressional oversight. Instead, the congressman — who had brought along staff from his committee and staffers from the office of Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois — found himself standing outside an unmarked set of rooms that had been converted into an immigration court. He was told by officers at the building that he could not enter. “I indicated that I was a member of Congress, and I was here to provide oversight and to enter and to see this series of rooms,” said Stanton. “They said no, I was not allowed to enter. They handed me a small piece of paper that indicated an email that I should use if I had any questions about the policy. Obviously, that was completely and totally unacceptable.” Judge says courts must be open to the public ”We were working the phones for several hours, trying to get access,” said Stanton, noting that he and congressional staffers called all the agencies involved, including FEMA, ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “I was shocked because each agency blamed the other,” Stanton said. “It’s FEMA’s building, it’s happening in their office, but FEMA said they had no authority to dictate who could enter into the impromptu courtroom area. Same thing with ICE, same thing with EOIR.” Eventually, a DHS official determined that Stanton could enter — but that Congressional staff could not. The following morning, Stanton returned. This time, he was permitted to enter more quickly, although congressional staff again were barred. In its statement to ACoM, DHS confirmed that Stanton was able to enter the makeshift court in DC, but noted further: “Access to EOIR hearing spaces is governed by EOIR policy, applicable federal requirements, and facility-specific security procedures.” Remote hearings Inside the court, Stanton said he found a waiting area and a conference room where immigration judges appeared by video. On the first day, he said, no one appeared for court during the 20 to 30 minutes he was inside. On the second day, there was a list of people scheduled for hearings — but none of them appeared. Stanton questioned whether those in deportation proceedings had been sufficiently informed of the change of venue. The congressman said he watched several hearings remotely conducted by judges and heard attorneys arguing cases. At one point, someone told the judge that a congressman from Arizona wanted to observe the proceeding. The judge’s response, Stanton said, was unequivocal: A member of Congress — like any member of the public — should be permitted to observe. “The judge verbally indicated that there should be no stopping citizens from entering this courtroom,” said the congressman. “Which I found very interesting in light of how incredibly difficult it was for even me as a member of Congress to get in.” ACoM asked Stanton whether the people adjudicating cases remotely in the DC pop-up courtroom were actually judges or DHS staff. “I can only speak to what I saw myself. In the time I spent in the room in which I saw the judge interact with other attorneys, it was clearly an immigration judge. I believe he was robed as a judge.” But he said he could not speak to whether other types of adjudicators were presiding over proceedings at the pop-up locations. ‘Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this?’ Stanton and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland — ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee — have since written to federal agencies, including DHS, USCIS, and the Justice Department. In their Sept. 28 letter, the two congressmen asked why a FEMA facility is being used for immigration proceedings and whether people are receiving adequate notice of hearings. “Why the hell is a FEMA building being used for this, at a time when we’re still in hurricane season, at a time when natural disasters are a real problem, and all of a sudden, FEMA now has all sorts of extra office room for this procedure?” Stanton queried at the AILA news briefing. Greg Chen, AILA’s senior director for government relations, said immigration hearings are also being conducted in DHS-controlled space on the third floor of the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, rather than the traditional immigration courtroom on the 12th floor. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York has conducted regular visits to the 12th floor courthouse. But he was blocked from entering the third-floor space, according to Chen. “These dramatic policy changes are creating chaos, threatening due process, and are making significant impacts on people’s lives, and it’s happening in secret,” he said. DHS appears to be targeting people without attorneys The lack of transparency is particularly troubling because the unusual courts appear to be handling large numbers of people who do not have attorneys, said Kel White, associate director for public education and training at the Acacia Center for Justice and chair-elect of AILA’s Washington, D.C., chapter. “We only found out about these hidden courts because attorneys in our chapter were mistakenly sent those notices,” White said. “Had those errors not occurred, many members of our community here would not have known that these proceedings were even taking place.” White said that was a sharp departure from the way new immigration court locations historically have been established — with stakeholder meetings, advance notice and information about which cases would be assigned to which court. Instead, she said, attorneys and immigrants are struggling to find the new locations and, in some cases, even determine when their hearings are taking place. The ‘Where’s Waldo’ of immigration courts At the FEMA site, Google Maps directed White to a different building. There was no signage identifying the immigration court. “For me to find that court itself was like playing hide and seek or the Where’s Waldo of courts,” White said. “But that’s a children’s game, and this is life with real consequences to the people who are entering that court, where failing to appear can mean deportation. And for many people, that can mean life or death if they’re applying for asylum or any other form of fear-based protection.” White described one couple who had driven from Baltimore to Washington for a hearing. The judge appeared by video from Baltimore, while the immigrant appeared in Washington DC. White was unable to enter the courtroom to provide representation. Instead, she sat with the person’s spouse at a McDonald’s while they waited. “She’d been in this country for over 10 years, and had suffered all this hardship, and here we were sitting, waiting to see if her partner was going to come back out of that courtroom,” White said. “It’s not even absurdity anymore. It’s starting to become cruelty.” Disappeared in the detainee locator The hearings are unfolding alongside another change that immigration attorneys say is making it increasingly difficult to represent detained clients: ICE’s online detainee locator system is no longer reliably disclosing the whereabouts of some people with final deportation orders. Those with final orders of removal waiting for travel documents may not appear in the detainee locator. Moreover, the ICE detainee locator has not listed the US among its drop-down list of countries of origin. Theoretically, ICE would not detain US citizens. But a ProPublica investigation released Oct. 6 found that 506 US citizens have been detained by ICE since President Donald Trump took office. 70 of them were children. 36 US citizens were detained for over a day, without the ability to contact their family or an attorney. ‘Where is my client?’ Ruby Powers, founder and managing attorney of Powers Law Group in Texas, said attorneys depend on the locator to find detained clients, communicate with them and determine where to file legal challenges. “If one of my detainees gets moved from, say, Conroe, Montgomery Processing Center, that’s Southern District. But if they get moved to El Paso, that’s Western District,” Powers said. “We can’t file a habeas if we don’t know where they’re detained.” Powers described a recent case in which a client disappeared from the locator system for several hours. She eventually learned the person was still detained — but was effectively “off the record.” “It was extremely confusing,” she said. “In fact, even the judge thought that the client was no longer detained and made a ruling based on the judge not being there. So this is basically a violation of our ability to represent our clients.” “These policies are deeply unfair, and they should frighten Americans,” said Chen. “ICE is disappearing people in the detention system. Hearings are being held in unmarked, hidden locations out of view from the public and from Congress.” “And importantly, the people being harmed are certainly not the worst of the worst. They increasingly include people who already have an application pending for legal protection, might be asylum seekers, might have a work permit, and are going through the proper application process that Congress set forth in law,” he said.

USCIS Forms Update Notice

Good afternoon, We recently updated the following USCIS form(s): Form G-1055, Fee Schedule 10/07/2026 02:06 PM EDT Edition Date: 10/07/26. You can find the edition date at the bottom of the page of Form G-1055, Fee Schedule. For more information, please visit our Forms Updates page.https://www.uscis.gov/g-1055

USCIS Forms Update Notice

Good afternoon, We recently updated the following USCIS form(s): Form G-1055, Fee Schedule 10/01/2026 10:28 AM EDT Edition Date: 10/01/26. You can find the edition date at the bottom of the page of Form G-1055, Fee Schedule. For more information, please visit our Forms Updates page.https://www.uscis.gov/g-1055.

Trump Says the Fallout From His Immigration Crackdown Has Been ‘Tough’

President Donald Trump said he struggles with finding the right balance on immigration enforcement in a rare admission Wednesday. Speaking to a largely Latino audience at the White House’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, Trump touted his administration’s hard-line deportation agenda, but said that the job weighs on him. “Frankly, it’s the hardest job I’ve had. The hardest job, because they’ll say you’re too tough or you’re too soft. Get tougher, get softer. No matter what you do, it’s always tough,” he told the audience. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests hit record highs last month as the administration continues to escalate its aggressive enforcement policies, which include mass deportations, family separations at the border and sweeping restrictions on both legal asylum processes and refugee admissions. Trending President Donald Trump Matt K. Lewis: I Almost Never Vote for Democrats. I’m Making an Exception This Year. President Donald Trump holds artist renderings of the new White House ballroom as meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. White House Renovations Dominate Trump’s Contentious Time Magazine Cover Interview President Donald Trump gestures during a State Dinner. Want Dinner With the President? Buy His Meme Coin. RFK Stadium is visible from Air Force One. D.C. Residents Push Back on RFK Stadium Master Plan Trump’s approval ratings among Hispanics have also dropped in the two years since he won a second term with new levels of support among Latino voters. Trump has seldom budged on his alarmist rhetoric against immigration from Latin American countries. After ICE agents shot two American citizens in Minneapolis during the administration’s Operation Metro Surge immigration crackdown, he showed some vulnerability. “I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough,” Trump told NBC News in February. Trump directed the withdrawal of 700 immigration agents from Minnesota following those incidents and the resulting political unrest. The president’s statements Wednesday echoed that change — but didn’t last long. He soon pivoted to his longtime claims that foreign countries are emptying prisons and mental institutions into the United States. He also returned to another recurring midterms pitch, telling the audience to “believe” he’s also on the ballot: “We lose 40% when I don’t run.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

‘Secret’ immigration courts popping up in federal buildings, observers say

McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — The Trump administration is holding secret, pop-up immigration court hearings in federal buildings that the public can’t access, and lawyers are having trouble finding detained migrants through an online system, lawyers and an Arizona lawmaker said Tuesday. Supreme Court allows quick third-country deportations as it weighs Trump policy U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, says he was initially denied entry into a FEMA building last week in Washington, D.C., where “pop-up” immigration courts are now being held. He says a day later, once he finally was admitted, the court was empty and he said not one person on the docket showed up for their hearing. During a virtual call with reporters on Tuesday, Stanton said the use of the FEMA facility — during hurricane season — is not appropriate for immigration court proceedings. He said that all immigration court proceedings should be open to the public, and easy to locate. “Access to a court of law, and it shouldn’t have to be a member of Congress – any American citizen should have access to the American judicial system. But I was told that the impromptu court that was set up inside the FEMA building was not allowing people to enter. That’s wrong. That’s illegal,” Stanton said. Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship lifts off in first orbit of Earth Stanton is ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management. That’s why he said he learned of the use of Federal Emergency Management Agency facilities for immigration courts. “There is no signage, no indication at all that a bank of offices and a conference room that’s set aside, no indication at all of what’s happening behind that door. No indication that that is now a courtroom set up for immigration hearings,” Stanton said. Play VideoPhiladelphia nun helps migrants on South Texas border Philadelphia nun gives immigrants hope when they’re due in court He said another pop-up court is being operated on the third floor of a building used by the Department of Homeland Security in New York City. Stanton says that he and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, the ranking member for the House Judiciary Committee, have sent a letter to the Department of Justice against operating these pop-up courts. Stanton says he also supports legislation that would remove the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees immigration proceedings, from under the control of the Justice Department. Ancient geoglyph damaged by border wall contractors, archaeologists say Kel White, of the Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit that provides free legal aid to migrants, says “people are not showing up because they can’t find the courts.” She says she was also denied access to one of these courtrooms to represent a client. “A court system needs to facilitate attendance not confusion,” White said. Greg Chen, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says the new immigration courts are “happening in secret.” In a policy brief released Monday, AILA says: “People are receiving late or no notice of the changes in locations to these new facilities. Some are not even marked as courts, making it difficult for people to find their hearing locations.” Chen also said that an Online Detainee Locator System operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “no longer disclosing information and whereabouts” regarding detained migrants, making it hard for immigration lawyers to find their clients. “Dramatic policy changes are creating chaos, threatening due process and are making significant impacts on peoples’ lives and are happening in secret,” Chen said. Chen said the new pop-up courts started in September and “are not listed as courts and are run by DHS rather than the court system and largely blocked off from transparency and observation.” Chen also said that an Online Detainee Locator System, operated by CBP is secretly “disappearing” migrants and they can’t find them in the system. “ICE is no longer disclosing informatin and whereabouts on people it has detained,” Chen said. “This is causing fear among families trying to locate their loved ones who are detained, and it’s also interfering with these peoples’ right to have their attorneys represent them and be in touch with them.” An EOIR spokeswoman told The City Reporter, a non-profit local news organization based in New York City, that the agency is “making scheduling adjustments, to include opening new hearing locations as needed, to ensure all cases are handled in a timely and lawful manner.” The spokeswoman also said agency is allowed to close off immigration courtrooms “at any time.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.