Immigration
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What is happening?
The federal government has sole authority over immigration in the United States. This includes control of all visas, programs for approval of permanent residence, refugee and humanitarian admissions, and all agencies and regulatory mechanisms that address immigration.
The Trump administration is engaged in a multi-pronged assault on both immigrants to the United States and the immigration system itself. The specific attacks we’re seeing include:
- Stripping lawful immigration status from people who had humanitarian protections, work permits, and even green cards in some cases, thus making hundreds of thousands of immigrants newly “illegal.”
- Dramatically escalating all aspects of immigration enforcement by conducting sweeps targeting Black and brown communities, militarizing and federalizing state and local law enforcement, reclassifying members of foreign-origin gangs as deportable “terrorists,” refusing to release arrestees on bond, and in all ways denying due process to arrested and detained immigrants.
- Undermining the integrity of the immigration system by firing immigration judges, demanding faster case processing, limiting access to hearings, and refusing legally mandatory oversight of detention centers.
- Attempting to end birthright citizenship for children born to immigrant parents in the United States, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.
These are not the only attacks underway, and our timeline below is best understood as representative rather than comprehensive. We’re building an explainer to go with this timeline, and we’ll also be publishing a separate page on the exploitation of the immigration system for repression and persecution of ideological and political targets.
Timeline of events
| Date | What happened? | Metadata |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 9, 2026 | Reports surface that the administration has deported or continued to detain hundreds of people who should have been eligible for release based on Judge Cummings’s ruling that their arrests violated the Castañon Nava federal consent decree (Castañon Nava v. DHS). | $cases: Castañon Nava v. Department of Homeland Security $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention; defying court orders |
| Mar 8, 2026 | Analysis of court filings reveals that the administration has decimated staff and capacity at internal oversight offices including the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which in 2025 investigated only 3% of the roughly 6,000 complaints filed in a nine-month period, down from a 20% investigation rate in recent years (Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights v. DHS). | $cases: Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights v. DHS $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight |
| Mar 8, 2026 | Federal judge Randolph D. Moss vacates the rule change that would require the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to dismiss new immigration cases unless a majority of the board votes to hear them (Amica Center for Immigrant Rights v. Executive Office for Immigration Review). | $cases: Amica Center for Immigrant Rights v. Executive Office for Immigration Review $tags: lawsuits; sabotaging immigration courts |
| Mar 8, 2026 | Reports surface that Anovaeon LLC, a “humanitarian response” company that has never held a federal contract, has begun hiring for a new immigration processing facility in Williamsport, MD. CEO Eric Fritz was previously a director at Endeavors during its mishandling of an $87 million contract to mitigate the spread of COVID in ICE detention. | $tags: mass detention |
| Mar 7, 2026 | The Wall Street Journal publishes an analysis of the Trump administration’s campaign to detain and demonize US citizens targeted for protesting or observing CBP and ICE — or just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They find that the administration has publicly accused 181 citizens of assault or other offenses against federal agents, that not a single one has been convicted, and that only about half have even been charged. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Mar 6, 2026 | The Texas Department of Public Safety releases video evidence about the killing of Ruben Ray Martinez in March 2025, contradicting ICE claims that he posed an immediate danger to the officer who had stepped in front of Martinez’s car before shooting him — an established tactic for ICE and CBP. Martinez was the first US citizen known to have been killed by immigration agents under the current administration, but his death was not disclosed until February 2026. | $tags: deaths |
| Mar 6, 2026 | Analysis of 911 call recordings from ICE’s Camp East Montana detention mega-center in Texas reveals medical neglect, malnutrition, assault, and suicides. One detainee eventually deported to the Netherlands reports that guards placed bets on which incarcerated immigrants would die by suicide next. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Mar 5, 2026 | President Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after bipartisan concerns about spending decisions, an alleged relationship with her chief of staff, and DHS agents killing two US citizens. Noem will move to a new role as special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas” initiative, and Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin is expected to replace her. | |
| Mar 4, 2026 | ICE arrests Nashville journalist Estefany Maria Rodríguez Flores without a warrant. Rodríguez, a Colombian national seeking asylum, is a staff writer at the Spanish-language outlet Nashville Noticias and has written several pieces critical of ICE; her lawyers immediately file a habeas petition and accuse the federal government of violating her First and Fifth Amendment rights (Rodríguez Flores v. Ladwig). | $tags: warrantless arrests; targeting protesters and observers; due process/habeas |
| Mar 3, 2026 | A University of Colorado Boulder study finds that in the first ten months of the second Trump administration, ICE arrests jumped 170% from Biden’s final year in office and that only 37% of those arrested had criminal convictions. According to the study, ICE is abducting more people in public spaces, and Denver has the sixth largest arrest spike in the country. | $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention |
| Mar 3, 2026 | DHS declares a quarantine at Camp East Montana in Texas due to 14 cases of measles. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Mar 2, 2026 | Judge Cobb blocks the Department of Homeland Security’s third attempt to restrict congressional oversight of immigration detention facilities (Neguse v. ICE). | $cases: Neguse v. ICE $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| Mar 2, 2026 | Reports surface that ICE has been stranding families newly released from the Dilley Immigration Processing Center at a small community shelter in Laredo, TX. The shelter does not receive any government support and reports receiving up to 40 people from Dilley some days, many of whom arrive without their documents. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detentions |
| Mar 2, 2026 | Fifty-six-year-old Haitian national Emmanuel Damas dies in ICE custody at HonorHealth Scottsdale Osborn Medical Center in Arizona. His fellow detainees report that before he collapsed at Florence Correctional Facility on February 19 and was hospitalized, Damas had been denied medical care for a severe toothache and laughed at by guards, who accused him of faking it. | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Mar 1, 2026 | Fifty-nine-year-old Iranian national Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi dies in ICE custody at Merit Health Hospital in Natchez, MS. Karshenas was transferred on February 20 from the Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Angola to a long-term medical facility, where he reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest. | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 27, 2026 | Federal judge John R. Tunheim issues a preliminary injunction blocking DHS’s new policy of detaining and rescreening documented, fully vetted refugees who have been in the US for at least a year but have not yet applied for a green card (U.H.A. v. Bondi). | $cases: U.H.A. v. Bondi $tags: mass detention; revoking legal status; asylum and refugee protections |
| Feb 27, 2026 | Forty-eight-year old Mexican national Alberto Gutiérrez-Reyes dies in ICE custody at Victor Valley Medical Center in Victorville, CA. Gutiérrez-Reyes had been hospitalized several days earlier after feeling faint, and his family reports that he had not received medical care for his diabetes and high cholesterol while detained. | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 27, 2026 | In response to Judge Boasberg’s February 12th order, nineteen Venezuelan nationals sent to CECOT in March 2025 file a petition stating that they wish to return to the US to contest their gang designation, despite knowing they will be re-detained upon arrival (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: third-country removals; mass detention; due process/habeas |
| Feb 27, 2026 | Judge Kasubhai issues a more detailed injunction blocking DHS agents from conducting warrantless arrests in Oregon without a “pre-arrest individualized determination by the arresting officer” for each person arrested showing both probable cause and likelihood of escape before a warrant can be obtained (M-J-M-A v. Wamsley). | $cases: M-J-M-A v. Wamsley $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests |
| Feb 27, 2026 | The Department of Justice announces charges for 30 more people allegedly involved in the protest at City Church, where an ICE agent is a pastor (United States v. Levy Armstrong). | $cases: United States v. Levy Armstrong $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers |
| Feb 26, 2026 | Denver Mayor Mike Johnston signs an executive order (PDF) requiring local police to protect protesters from federal immigration enforcement officers who use excessive force. | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Feb 26, 2026 | Five immigrant advocacy organizations sue the administration over a February 6, 2026, rule change that would, among other provisions, require the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to dismiss all immigration cases filed after March 9, 2026, unless a majority of the 19-member board votes to hear them, essentially eliminating meaningful review (Amica Center for Immigrant Rights v. Executive Office for Immigration Review). | $cases: Amica Center for Immigrant Rights v. Executive Office for Immigration Review $tags: due process/habeas; lawsuits; sabotaging immigration courts |
| Feb 25, 2026 | The Supreme Court rules unanimously that government contractor GEO Group cannot claim immunity in a 2014 lawsuit in which immigrant detainees allege they were threatened with solitary confinement if they refused to work without pay for the company. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 25, 2026 | Federal judge Brian E. Murphy finds the policy of arbitrarily deporting immigrants to third countries where they have no ties to be illegal. Judge Murphy’s ruling says DHS must try to send each detainee to their country of origin or to one designated by an immigration judge; if those options fail, detainees must be notified and allowed time to object based on fear of persecution before deportation to any other country (D.V.D. v. DHS). | $cases: D.V.D. v. DHS $tags: third-country removals; lawsuits |
| Feb 24, 2026 | The Illinois Accountability Commission hears expert testimony about how federal immigration actions during 2025’s “Operation Midway Blitz” affected people’s daily lives. Experts report that fear of ICE and CBP harmed people’s mental and physical health and caused them to avoid schools, hospitals, and local businesses. | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Feb 24, 2026 | Rohingya refugee Nurul Shah Alam is found dead in Buffalo, NY, five days after Customs and Border Protection agents left him at a Tim Horton’s without notifying anyone, a mile away from an address where his family no longer lives. Shah Alam, who was nearly blind and had difficulty walking, could neither speak nor read English. | $tags: deaths |
| Feb 23, 2026 | Former ICE attorney Ryan Schwank offers whistleblower testimony declaring that he was given “secret orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution” at the ICE Academy. He says that the legally required training offered to new agents is “deficient, defective, and broken” after cuts to instruction on “the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention, and the limits of officers’ authority.” | |
| Feb 22, 2026 | Eyewitness accounts of federal immigration agent actions in Minnesota drop to levels just above those reported before the official start of the “surge” in Minneapolis, according to a Star Tribune analysis of data from People Over Papers. The analysis shows that people reported nearly as many immigration actions at the peak of the Minneapolis–St. Paul surge as in the Los Angeles surge in June 2025, though the Twin Cities’ population is about 3.2 million and LA’s is about 18.5 million. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Feb 20, 2026 | DHS proposes a rule to “pause” issuance of work authorizations for new asylum applicants until average processing time for certain applications falls to 180 days at most. Based on the current backlog, it could take anywhere from 14 to 173 years to resume issuing work permits. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Feb 19, 2026 | Teen Vogue surfaces reports on anti-ICE protests and walkouts at high schools nationwide. (We collected local reporting on walkouts in 50 US states in a February 12 briefing and await more comprehensive national coverage.) | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Feb 18, 2026 | ICE and USCIS issue a joint memo (filed as part of a lawsuit) mandating that ICE indefinitely detain and rescreen documented, fully vetted refugees who have been in the US for at least a year, but who have not yet applied for a green card. This rescinds 2010 guidance that refugees should not be detained for failure to apply at the one-year mark, the first point at which they’re legally permitted to do so (U.H.A. v. Bondi). | $cases: U.H.A. v. Bondi $tags: mass detention; revoking legal status; asylum and refugee protections |
| Feb 18, 2026 | Judge Sykes grants an order to enforce judgement (PDF) condemning the administration’s “terror against noncitizens.” She requires DHS to notify thousands of detained immigrants that they may be eligible for release on bond and to arrange for immediate telephone access to attorneys, and she vacates a January 2026 ruling from the Board of Immigration Appeals that told federal agents they were not bound by Sykes’s earlier orders (Bautista v. Santacruz). | $cases: Bautista v. Santacruz $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention |
| Feb 18, 2026 | Reports emerge that DHS is reviewing all cases (open or closed) of suspected illegal voting in search of noncitizen immigrants who may have improperly voted or registered to vote before becoming citizens. The DOJ is reportedly prepared to share voter registration data of suspected noncitizen voters with the DHS investigation. | $tags: revoking legal status; surveillance and data |
| Feb 17, 2026 | A new analysis of habeas petitions from ProPublica and the Texas Tribune shows that immigrants have filed nearly 18,000 challenges to individual detentions since the beginning of the second Trump administration, with nearly 40% originating in California or Texas. A WIRED analysis from the previous week found that detainees in Minnesota brought nearly as many challenges since December 1, 2025, as are normally filed in the US in an entire year. | $tags: due process/habeas |
| Feb 17, 2026 | ICE transports a Guatemalan family held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center with an acutely ill infant across the Mexican border and leaves them there. Mireya López Sánchez says that her two-month-old baby Juan Nicolás had already been hospitalized, “become unresponsive,” and then been sent back to Dilley despite his illness. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 17, 2026 | Maryland Governor Wes Moore signs a state ban on 287(g) agreements. The legislation prohibits state and local officials from entering into immigration enforcement agreements with ICE and also requires that any such existing agreements be terminated by July 1, 2026. | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Feb 16, 2026 | Fifty-nine-year-old Cambodian national Lorth Sims dies in ICE custody at Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, IN. ICE claims he was found unresponsive in his cell. No cause of death is reported, and state Representative Ed Delaney calls on the Department of Corrections for a “thorough investigation.” | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 16, 2026 | Special education teacher Dr. Linda Davis dies after her car is hit — less than half a mile from her school — by a suspect pursued by ICE in Savannah, GA. Local law enforcement criticize ICE’s tactics, pointing out that they have a no-chase policy to protect their citizens from exactly this kind of danger. | $tags: deaths |
| Feb 16, 2026 | Twenty-seven-year-old Guatemalan national Jairo Garcia-Hernandez dies in ICE custody after reportedly collapsing at Larkin Community Hospital in Miami, FL, and no cause of death is reported. Garcia-Hernandez had been detained for more than a year. | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 13, 2026 | As DHS ramps up its efforts to open massive warehouse detention centers across the country, the US Navy adds private prison corporation GEO Group to its fast-track contracting portal. This allows DHS to bypass an often lengthy bidding process and issue work orders directly to the corporation. | $tags: mass detention; obstructing oversight |
| Feb 13, 2026 | Community observers and elected officials in Los Angeles confirm the departure of ICE and CBP from the Coast Guard base on Terminal Island, a historic Japanese American incarceration site used by federal agents to stage raids starting in the summer of 2025. Observers in LA report that detentions have slowed but not stopped. | $tags: surges and operations; protests and community defense |
| Feb 13, 2026 | Department of Justice prosecutors move to drop their own case against Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis because ICE agents lied under oath about what happened before they shot Sosa-Celis on January 14, 2026. The case continues a pattern of dismissals and not guilty verdicts for members of the public accused of assaulting federal officers. | $cases: Aljorna v. Easterwood $tags: lawsuits; street violence |
| Feb 13, 2026 | Federal judge Richard G. Stearns directs the Trump administration to return Any Lucia Lopez Belloza to the US by February 27 and recommends that she be issued a student visa. Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old college student, was detained at Boston’s Logan airport in November 2025 and deported to Honduras even after a court order prohibited her removal (Lopez Belloza v. Hyde). | $cases: Lopez Belloza v. Hyde $tags: lawsuits; defying court orders |
| Feb 13, 2026 | Federal judge Tana Lin orders the immediate release of Greggy Sorio, a Filipino immigrant held in ICE detention in Tacoma, WA, for nearly a year. During that time he was denied medical treatment and developed ulcerative colitis, a bone infection so severe it required two partial amputations, a kidney injury, and blood-loss anemia; Tacoma nurses have spoken out to reporters about ICE interference with medical care and patient safety. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 13, 2026 | Plaintiffs seeking protection from federal violence and intimidation in Minneapolis–St. Paul file an amended complaint that includes more than 100 sworn declarations (PDF) describing ICE and CBP violations of Minnesotans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights (Tincher v. Noem). | $cases: Tincher v. Noem $tags: targeting protesters and observers; lawsuits; mass detention |
| Feb 12, 2026 | Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan declares the end of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota and withdraws some federal agents, but officers continue to intimidate immigrants by stationing themselves around medical clinics and hospitals. In response, doctors and nurses covertly provide care in the homes of people who fear being detained. | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Feb 12, 2026 | DHS awards Palantir a $1 billion, five-year blanket purchase agreement that allows its agencies to bypass the competitive bidding process and purchase Palantir’s surveillance technologies and services without review. | $tags: surveillance and data; obstructing oversight |
| Feb 12, 2026 | Judge Boasberg orders the government to “facilitate” return to the US (including by paying for plane tickets) for any Venezuelan nationals deported to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison in March 2025 who wish to return, after the administration refuses to provide an alternative remedy (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Feb 12, 2026 | Reports emerge that US Citizenship and Immigration Services is sending staff around the country to review cases where naturalized citizens could be stripped of citizenship to meet a DHS quota demanding referral of 100–200 denaturalization cases per month to the Office of Immigration Litigation. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Feb 12, 2026 | The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandates that all public housing authorities provide documents proving US citizenship or eligible immigration status for all residents within 30 days, though it is unclear what will happen to tenants if the deadline is not met. | |
| Feb 11, 2026 | In a letter to Congress, DHS admits to deporting 86 DACA recipients, out of the 261 arrested between Jan 1, 2025, and Nov 19, 2025. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Feb 11, 2026 | Reports surface that the Trump administration has been sending all pregnant unaccompanied minors to a single group shelter in San Benito, TX, since late July 2025. Sources in the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the custody of unaccompanied minors, say that the shelter and its surrounding region lack the expert care required for these high-risk pregnancies. | $tags: mass detention; detention conditions |
| Feb 11, 2026 | The Office of Management and Budget approves a request from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to collect information about the social media accounts of people applying for immigration status changes. The increased scrutiny is permitted for one year starting February 28 and was approved even though government officials dismissed it in 2021 as adding no value. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Feb 10, 2026 | People detained by ICE during an October 19 racetrack raid sue local, state, and federal law enforcement, alleging that they were racially profiled; zip-tied for hours without access to food, water, or bathrooms; and searched without reasonable suspicion (Rodriguez v. Porter). | $cases: Rodriguez v. Porter $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests; detention conditions |
| Feb 9, 2026 | The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overrides a lower court’s block on the termination of temporary protected status for approximately 89,000 citizens of Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua (National TPS Alliance v. Noem II, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem II, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Feb 6, 2026 | A three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals permits DHS to indefinitely detain immigrants without bond hearings. The Trump administration’s extraordinarily unusual claim that all noncitizens who were not “lawfully admitted” are “arriving aliens” (no matter how long they’ve lived here or whether they have other legal protections) and must therefore be jailed indefinitely is now law throughout the court’s jurisdiction. The ruling also affects immigrants arrested elsewhere and sent to the 5th Circuit before local courts can intervene (Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi, Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara). | $cases: Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi; Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention |
| Feb 6, 2026 | After DHS refuses to release 18-month-old Amelia Arrieta from detention or to provide vital medication after her hospitalization, Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic files an emergency petition for her release, and DHS releases her and her family (A.A.V. (one-year-old) v. Rodriguez). | $cases: A.A.V. (one-year-old) v. Rodriguez $tags: lawsuits; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 6, 2026 | After widespread backlash, the Department of Homeland Security abandons plans to use a warehouse in Byhalia, MS, as an ICE detention center. Other proposed warehouse conversions in Arizona, Oklahoma, New York, Texas, and Virginia are also receiving intense community pushback. | $tags: mass detention; protests and community defense |
| Feb 6, 2026 | The city of El Paso, TX reports two cases of tuberculosis at Camp East Montana, an ICE detention center at the Fort Bliss Army base. The city and Representative Veronica Escobar (D-TX) also report that there are 18 COVID-19 cases at the detention center. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Feb 6, 2026 | The Department of Justice issues (PDF) a rule change that will force the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to dismiss all immigration court cases filed after March 9, 2026, unless a majority of the 19-member board votes to hear them. People whose cases are dismissed by the BIA are subject to arrest, detention, and deportation. | $tags: sabotaging immigration courts |
| Feb 5, 2026 | Federal judge Indira Talwani blocks DHS and ICE (PDF) from reviewing or using taxpayer information received from the IRS under an agreement between the agencies (Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent). | $cases: Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts v. Bessent $tags: surveillance and data; lawsuits |
| Feb 5, 2026 | New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signs The Immigration Safety Act (House Bill 9) into law. The legislation prohibits local governments from entering into agreements to detain immigrants, cancels existing agreements, bans construction of detention centers on public lands, and blocks local sheriffs and police departments from working with ICE. | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Feb 4, 2026 | DHS files a motion to dismiss the asylum claims of Liam Conejo Ramos’s family and expedite their deportation. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Feb 4, 2026 | Documents obtained by ProPublica disprove DHS’s public justification for its brutal September raid on a Chicago apartment building, revealing that the raid was facilitated by the landlord and targeted immigrant tenants in unsafe, dilapidated apartments. DHS claimed that Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had taken over the building. | $tags: militarization; warrantless arrests |
| Feb 4, 2026 | Federal judge Mustafa Kasubhai blocks DHS agents from arresting immigrants in Oregon without even obtaining administrative warrants from their supervisors, after reports that ICE officers are operating under an eight-arrests-per-day quota and writing warrants after making arrests based on perceived ethnicity (M-J-M-A v. Wamsley). | $cases: M-J-M-A v. Wamsley $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests |
| Feb 4, 2026 | Three detainees file a lawsuit against several guards and the GEO Group alleging physical and sexual assault, medical neglect, and lack of accountability at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, WA. The Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington has documented 157 reports of sexual assault at the facility over the last ten years (Javon Gordon v. GEO Group Inc.). | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention; lawsuits |
| Feb 4, 2026 | Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger issues an executive order (PDF) requiring four state agencies, including the State Police and the Department of Corrections, to end partnerships with ICE. | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Feb 3, 2026 | During a Minnesota district court hearing, a government prosecutor temporarily assigned to the US Attorney’s Minnesota office expresses exhaustion amid an overwhelming caseload and exasperation with the Department of Homeland Security’s failure to comply with court orders. The next day, the administration removes her from the assignment. | $tags: defying court orders |
| Feb 3, 2026 | Federal judge Patrick Magnuson orders the release of Venezuelan nationals Julio Sosa-Celis and Alfredo Aljorna and prohibits their deportation as they await trial, but ICE re-arrests them before they can leave the courthouse. Chief US District Judge Patrick Schilitz immediately responds to their lawyer’s petition by ordering ICE not to remove them from Minnesota and demanding an explanation from the government (Aljorna v. Easterwood). | $cases: Aljorna v. Easterwood $tags: lawsuits; defying court orders |
| Feb 3, 2026 | New York Attorney General Letitia James announces that her office will send legal observers throughout the state to document immigration raids. | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Feb 2, 2026 | A federal judge blocks the Department of Homeland Security’s second attempt to restrict congressional oversight of immigration facilities. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem immediately files a third new policy demanding seven days’ notice for oversight visits (Neguse v. ICE). | $cases: Neguse v. ICE $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| Feb 2, 2026 | Federal judge Ana Reyes pauses the administration’s termination of temporary protected status for up to 350,000 Haitian nationals and issues a blistering opinion (PDF) on the legal foundations of the case (Lesly Miot v. Trump). | $cases: Lesly Miot v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status; asylum and refugee protections |
| Feb 2, 2026 | Judge Tostrud issues a final ruling denying a request to order federal agencies to preserve evidence relevant to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, saying that the agencies appear to be unlikely to destroy or mishandle evidence as the investigation proceeds (Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension v. Noem). | $cases: Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight |
| Feb 2, 2026 | The Hennepin County Medical Examiner finds that the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti is a homicide. This follows ProPublica’s identification of the Customs and Border Protection officers who shot Pretti (CBP refused to release their names) and reports that the Justice Department will not conduct a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death. | $tags: deaths |
| Feb 2, 2026 | US citizens and civil rights organizations file a lawsuit arguing that the Trump administration’s pause on immigrant visas from 75 countries, allegedly because these immigrants will “take welfare,” is unlawful and unnecessary (Catholic Legal Immigration Network v. Rubio). | $cases: Catholic Legal Immigration Network v. Rubio $tags: lawsuits; visa restrictions |
| Jan 31, 2026 | Following a scathing order from federal judge Fred Biery, ICE releases five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from Dilley Immigration Processing Center. Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX) escorts them home to Minnesota the next day. | $tags: mass detention; detention conditions |
| Jan 31, 2026 | Judge Katherine Menendez declines to block DHS operations in Minnesota while the state’s case against the administration proceeds (Minnesota v. Noem). | $cases: Minnesota v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; surges and operations |
| Jan 31, 2026 | With no provocation, ICE officers tear gas a crowd of peaceful protesters — including children and the elderly — outside the Macadam ICE facility in Portland, OR. In response, federal judge Michael Simon temporarily limits ICE’s use of chemical and projectile weapons at that location unless officers are “legally justified in using deadly force” (Dickinson v. Trump). | $cases: Dickinson v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Jan 30, 2026 | Federal agents arrest independent Black journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, charging them with civil rights conspiracy and obstructing a place of worship for their actions reporting on the Cities Church protest. Three days later, they arrest a Temple University student who was assisting Lemon (United States v. Levy Armstrong). | $cases: United States v. Levy Armstrong $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers |
| Jan 30, 2026 | Immigrants’ rights activists file the first lawsuit against ICE’s recently disclosed policy allowing agents to enter people’s homes with administrative warrants (signed by a DHS official) rather than judicial warrants (Greater Boston Latino Network v. Noem). | $cases: Greater Boston Latino Network v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests |
| Jan 29, 2026 | ICE agents wearing vests marked POLICE surround an Oregon woman in her car, break her windows, drag her out, and handle her so violently that she sustains a concussion, a torn rotator cuff, and bruised ribs. After locating her US passport in her purse, the agents drive away, leaving her alone and injured at the scene of the attack. | $tags: street violence; warrantless arrests |
| Jan 28, 2026 | A three-judge panel in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a district judge’s ruling that DHS’s termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for 600,000 Venezuelan nationals was unlawful. For now, the Supreme Court’s shadow-docket order allowing TPS terminations to continue while it considers whether to hear the administration’s appeal takes precedence over the circuit court’s decision (National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jan 28, 2026 | ICE issues an internal memo informing agents that they can make arrests without even an administrative warrant (one signed by a supervisor) whenever ICE agents believe that the people they want to arrest are unlawfully present in the US and are “likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.” | $tags: warrantless arrests |
| Jan 28, 2026 | Judge Patrick Schiltz cancels his summons for acting head of ICE Todd Lyons, but his documentation for this ruling includes a list of 96 court orders — just in the month of January 2026 — with which ICE has failed to comply. | $tags: defying court orders |
| Jan 27, 2026 | An ICE agent who claims to be pursuing an immigrant from Ecuador attempts to enter the Ecuadorean consulate in Minneapolis and is turned back by staff. Federal agents must request permission to enter consulate premises, which are considered foreign territory under international law. | |
| Jan 27, 2026 | The State Department reportedly makes plans to process 4,500 white South African refugee applications per month — drastically exceeding the previously stated yearly cap — and to install trailers on US embassy grounds in Pretoria to support this effort. According to the most recent arrivals report, only white South Africans have been given refugee status in the US since October 2025. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Jan 26, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani issues a preliminary injunction indefinitely blocking the Trump administration’s termination of family reunification processes for people from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jan 26, 2026 | Minnesota’s Chief US District Judge Patrick Schiltz orders acting head of ICE Todd Lyons to either release a wrongly detained immigrant or appear in court and explain why Lyons should not be held in contempt for ignoring a previous court order in the case. Judge Schiltz states that this “extraordinary step” is necessary because “the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary.” The following day, ICE releases the detained man from custody. | $tags: defying court orders; due process/habeas |
| Jan 26, 2026 | Reports surface that Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino is being demoted and will be stripped of his “commander at large” title; he is expected to resume duties as sector chief in El Centro, CA, and to retire there. DHS has also suspended access to his official social media accounts. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Jan 26, 2026 | The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals blocks Judge Menendez’s injunction against federal agents arresting or harming peaceful and non-obstructive members of the Minnesota public, on the basis that the government is likely to prevail (Tincher v. Noem). | $cases: Tincher v. Noem $tags: targeting protesters and observers; lawsuits; mass detention |
| Jan 24, 2026 | Advocates for Human Rights files a class-action lawsuit against DHS and ICE, alleging that detainees at the Whipple Building in Minneapolis are being denied their constitutional and legal right to counsel (Advocates for Human Rights v. Noem). | $cases: Advocates For Human Rights v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas |
| Jan 24, 2026 | Attorney General Pam Bondi sends a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz requesting that the state “restore law and order” by repealing unspecified “sanctuary policies,” ordering Minnesota prisons to “cooperate fully” with ICE, and handing over data about its voters and Medicaid and SNAP beneficiaries. Two days later, federal judge Katherine Menendez hears arguments that the Bondi letter violates Minnesota’s sovereignty (Minnesota v. Noem). | $cases: Minnesota v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; surveillance and data; targeting protesters and observers |
| Jan 24, 2026 | Detained immigrant families protest conditions at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, citing contaminated food, lack of medical care, and contagious illness. Less than a week later, the Department of Homeland Security reports two cases of measles at the facility. | $tags: mass detention; detention conditions |
| Jan 24, 2026 | In Minneapolis, Border Patrol agents restrain 37-year-old observer Alex Pretti, remove his holstered, registered gun, and then shoot him at close range while he is on his knees, killing him. DHS agents ultimately fire at Pretti at least ten times, including after he collapsed. DHS claims they acted in self defense. | $tags: deaths |
| Jan 24, 2026 | In the hours after Alex Pretti’s killing by Border Patrol, the Hennepin County Attorney’s office opens an online portal where the public can submit evidence related to the shooting, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison files a lawsuit seeking to prevent the federal government from destroying evidence related to Pretti’s death. Federal judge Eric C. Tostrud grants a temporary restraining order (Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension v. Noem). | $cases: Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; state and local government opposition |
| Jan 23, 2026 | An estimated 700 Minnesota businesses shut down as tens of thousands march in subfreezing temperatures in Minneapolis to support ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom, a general strike championed by unions, faith leaders, and community activists. Nearly 100 clergy members are arrested at the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport as they call for airlines to stop deporting detainees. | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Jan 23, 2026 | Reports emerge that the Department of Justice directed the FBI to investigate Renee Good for suspected assault on ICE officer Jonathan Ross, shutting down a civil rights investigation into his fatal shooting of Good. This is in keeping with earlier reports that the FBI will look into Good’s possible connections with community groups protesting the immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis. | $tags: obstructing oversight |
| Jan 23, 2026 | The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rejects the DOJ’s secretive demand to force Minnesota chief district judge Patrick Schiltz to issue the arrest warrants previously denied for five people present at the Cities Church protest. Prior to this decision, Judge Schiltz files a remarkable letter with the circuit court rebuking the DOJ (United States v. Levy Armstrong). | $cases: United States v. Levy Armstrong $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Jan 23, 2026 | Wael Tarabishi, a chronically ill man whose father and sole caregiver has been in ICE detention since October 28, 2025, dies after his condition rapidly deteriorates without care. Maher Tarabishi had previously been allowed to stay in the US under a supervision order to care for his son; DHS denied Maher’s request to see or speak to Wael before his death. | $tags: deaths |
| Jan 22, 2026 | Federal agents in Minneapolis detain Ecuadorian asylum-seeker Elvis Joel Tipan-Echeverria and his 2-year-old daughter with no warrant or order of removal for the family. An emergency judicial order to release the toddler comes too late to prevent her from being sent to Texas with her father, but ICE returns them both to Minnesota the next day; though Tipan-Echeverria remains in custody, the child is reunited with her mother. | $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention; detention conditions |
| Jan 22, 2026 | ICE agents and state and county law enforcement officials stop and question two Texas Monthly journalists on three separate occasions near the US–Mexico border. | $tags: targeting political opponents |
| Jan 22, 2026 | In an annotated judgment expanding on his earlier ruling, Judge William Young finds that the revocation of visas for academics who expressed support for Gazans constituted unlawful viewpoint discrimination and violated the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act. Judge Young vacates both the “enforcement policy” and its implementation and releases all public evidence from the trial (American Association of University Professors v. Rubio). | $cases: American Association of University Professors v. Rubio $tags: lawsuits; targeting political opponents; revoking legal status |
| Jan 22, 2026 | Judge Sara Ellis grants the plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss the case brought by Chicago journalists against the Department of Homeland Security; plaintiffs had moved to dismiss because conditions in Chicago had changed. Judge Ellis also orders the release of hundreds of evidentiary videos and use-of-force reports she had used to reach her earlier findings (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem). | $cases: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Jan 21, 2026 | A Texas county medical examiner determines that the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, who died in ICE custody at Camp East Montana in El Paso, TX, was a homicide. The same day, Judge Steven Briones temporarily blocks the deportation of two detainees who say they witnessed guards choking Lunas Campos. | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Jan 21, 2026 | Following incremental demobilizations over the past two months, the Defense Department quietly confirms that it has withdrawn all federalized National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland. | $tags: militarization; surges and operations |
| Jan 21, 2026 | Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly pauses her ruling (PDF) blocking the IRS from sharing taxpayer data with ICE pending appeal, but she instructs the IRS to provide notice to plaintiffs before any connection of computer systems to share information (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS $tags: lawsuits; surveillance and data |
| Jan 21, 2026 | The 8th Circuit grants an administrative stay (PDF) counteracting Judge Menendez’s prohibition against arresting or harming peaceful, non-obstructive members of the public in Minnesota (Tincher v. Noem). | $cases: Tincher v. Noem $tags: targeting protesters and observers; lawsuits; mass detention |
| Jan 21, 2026 | The Trump administration launches a large enforcement operation in Maine, claiming to have identified 1,400 immigrants guilty of serious crimes. Maine has one of the smallest immigrant populations in the US, and Governor Janet Mills requests that ICE provide data to back up their claim. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Jan 20, 2026 | ICE agents detain 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father in Columbia Heights, MN, as they return from pre-kindergarten pick-up. Despite the family’s status as asylum seekers with no order of deportation (and ignoring pleas from neighbors to release Liam to his mother or into their care) ICE sends Liam and his father to a notorious detention center in Texas. | $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention; detention conditions |
| Jan 20, 2026 | Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko approves warrants for the three leaders of the Cities Church protest (who are arrested two days later) but refuses the DOJ’s request for five more, including for journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon. The DOJ immediately demands that Minnesota’s chief district judge, Patrick Schiltz, overturn the denials, and when Judge Schiltz does not comply, the DOJ secretly appeals to the 8th Circuit to force the issue (United States v. Levy Armstrong). | $cases: United States v. Levy Armstrong $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Jan 19, 2026 | The Department of Homeland Security claims to have arrested 10,000 “criminal illegal aliens” in Minnesota, including 3,000 since early December. Of the fewer than 300 arrestee names released, nearly all had already served their time or had been transferred to ICE from prisons, not grabbed from Twin Cities streets. Local reporting indicates that the 10,000 number appears to be made up. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Jan 18, 2026 | After weeks of severe and undertreated illness in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, 18-month-old Amalia Arrieta experiences respiratory failure and DHS officials finally send her to a local Intensive Care Unit, where she is hospitalized for 10 days with COVID, RSV, and pneumonia. When she is released, DHS sends her back to Dilley and reportedly takes away her lifesaving medications. | $cases: A.A.V. (one-year-old) v. Rodriguez $tags: lawsuits; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Jan 18, 2026 | Federal agents in St. Paul, MN, arrest US citizen ChongLy “Scott” Thao after breaking down his door without a warrant and pointing guns at his family. Agents force Thao to leave his home in underwear, sandals, and a blanket in subfreezing weather, return him later, and claim that he was arrested because he was living with sex offenders, which he was not. | $tags: warrantless arrests; detention conditions |
| Jan 18, 2026 | Reverend Nekima Levy Armstrong, Black civil rights attorney and former leader of the Minneapolis NAACP, leads a demonstration during a service at Cities Church after locals discover that one of its lay pastors is also an ICE field office leader who is named in a lawsuit alleging physical abuses and First Amendment violations by ICE. | $cases: United States v. Levy Armstrong $tags: protests and community defense |
| Jan 16, 2026 | Federal judge Katherine Menendez forbids DHS agents to tear-gas, pepper-spray, arrest, detain, or otherwise retaliate against observers, demonstrators, and members of the public in Minnesota unless they are “obstructing or interfering with” the actions of federal agents (Tincher v. Noem). | $cases: Tincher v. Noem $tags: targeting protesters and observers; lawsuits; mass detention; protests and community defense |
| Jan 15, 2026 | A federal appeals court overturns a district court decision that had freed Mahmoud Khalil, ruling that his case must proceed through the immigration courts instead. Khalil cannot be immediately re-detained (Khalil v. Joyce). | $cases: Khalil v. Joyce $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Jan 15, 2026 | Federal judge Jeffrey M. Bryan rules that ICE agents violated the Fourth Amendment by forcibly entering a Minnesota man’s home without a judicial warrant. Judge Bryan’s ruling contradicts an ICE internal memo (recently shared by whistleblowers) that claims agents may enter homes with only an administrative warrant (Gibson v. Bondi). | $cases: Gibson v. Bondi $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests; whistleblower disclosures |
| Jan 15, 2026 | Hennepin Healthcare, Minnesota’s largest safety-net hospital, announces that it will comply with a DHS subpoena of its employment records, including home addresses and Social Security numbers. The DHS audit of the hospital was announced two days after state and local officials told ICE to stop interfering with patient care and family visits. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; surveillance and data; state and local government opposition |
| Jan 15, 2026 | In a social media post, President Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military to Minneapolis. | $tags: militarization |
| Jan 14, 2026 | Federal agents in Minneapolis shoot Venezuelan national Julio Sosa-Celis after chasing his roommate Alfredo Aljorna, whom they misidentified as the owner of a vehicle they pursued. DHS says that the agent shot Sosa-Celis in self-defense after he, Aljorna, and an unidentified third man attacked federal agents with a broom and shovel. Unsealed FBI testimony reveals that the agent shot through a door, hitting Sosa-Celis in the leg and narrowly missing a child’s crib. | $cases: Aljorna v. Easterwood $tags: lawsuits; street violence; warrantless arrests |
| Jan 14, 2026 | Governor Tim Walz addresses Minnesotans (transcript) and attests to a “campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.” He calls on his constituents to participate in mutual aid and to document the extraordinary wave of violence by federal agents. Minnesotans have responded to attacks on their neighbors with sustained mutual aid, citizen patrols, and massive protests. | $tags: protests and community defense; state and local government opposition |
| Jan 14, 2026 | Minneapolis resident and Nicaraguan national Victor Manuel Diaz dies at Camp East Montana in El Paso, TX. DHS reports the death as a “presumed suicide” and sends Diaz’s body to a military facility rather than to the local medical examiner in El Paso, who had declared a prior death at Camp East Montana a homicide. | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Jan 14, 2026 | The Trump administration announces an indefinite freeze on immigrant visas from 75 countries, claiming migrants from these countries “take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates." The pause begins January 21, 2026, and will not affect visitor visas. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Jan 14, 2026 | The Trump administration secretly deports nine people to Cameroon, a nation with no public agreement with the US to accept deportees from other countries. None of the nine people are from Cameroon, and almost all of them have court orders protecting them from deportation to their countries of origin. | $tags: third-country removals |
| Jan 13, 2026 | Reports show ICE is exploiting unrestricted access to license plate data from state and private sources to identify and intimidate immigration enforcement observers in Minnesota. After running license plates to obtain observers’ names and addresses, ICE agents greet them by name and drive to their houses. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Jan 13, 2026 | The effective head of the immigration court system, Justice Department employee Chief Judge Teresa Riley, instructs immigration judges to ignore a district court’s order that prohibits mandatory detention and requires courts to offer bond hearings (Bautista v. Santacruz). | $cases: Bautista v. Santacruz $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention; defying court orders |
| Jan 12, 2026 | The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Justice withdraw Biden-era guidance that clarifies and encourages enforcement of a law prohibiting lender discrimination against immigrants and non-citizens. | |
| Jan 12, 2026 | The state of Illinois and city of Chicago and, separately, the state of Minnesota and cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul file lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security and Kristi Noem over immigration enforcement operations in their jurisdictions (Illinois v. DHS; Minnesota v. Noem). | $cases: Illinois v. DHS; Minnesota v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; surges and operations; state and local government opposition |
| Jan 10, 2026 | Judge Indira Talwani issues a temporary restraining order pausing the Trump administration’s termination of family reunification processes for people from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jan 8, 2026 | Border Patrol officers In Portland, OR, shoot Venezuelan immigrants Luis David Nino-Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras in the parking lot of a medical office building after a targeted stop. | $tags: street violence |
| Jan 8, 2026 | DHS Secretary Kristi Noem places new restrictions on oversight visits to ICE facilities, but this does not come to light until two days later, when MN congressional representatives are denied entry to an ICE holding facility. Noem’s demonstrates that in order to dodge legal restrictions laid out by Neguse v. ICE, enforcement of the new policy must be paid for entirely by funds from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBBA). | $cases: Neguse v. ICE $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| Jan 8, 2026 | While arresting Mexican national Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, ICE agents injure him so severely that he is hospitalized with five brain hemorrhages and eight fractures on the front, back, and sides of his skull. Castañeda Mondragón says ICE agents pulled him from a car in St. Paul, cuffed him, beat him with a steel baton, and then took him to a detention center and beat him again; ICE claims he “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.” | $tags: detention conditions |
| Jan 7, 2026 | An ICE agent in Minneapolis shoots and kills Renee Good and claims self-defense, though video of the shooting appears to show her driving away from him. The FBI then refuses to collaborate with local law enforcement in their investigation. | $tags: deaths; obstructing oversight |
| Jan 7, 2026 | Avelo Airlines announces that they are discontinuing ICE deportation flights, citing political controversy and unpredictable income. | |
| Jan 7, 2026 | Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, a US citizen whose birth certificate ICE claimed was “fake,” is released after 25 days in detention. | $tags: warrantless arrests; due process/habeas |
| Jan 4, 2026 | The Trump administration asks for more time to deliver its plans for facilitating return or hearings for men deported to CECOT who were later transferred to Venezuela, because the US government has just abducted Venezuela’s president and first lady. The following day, Judge Boasberg grants an extension until January 12, 2026 (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Jan 3, 2026 | Cuban immigrant Geraldo Lunas Campos dies in ICE custody at the Camp East Montana facility in El Paso, TX, after “experiencing medical distress.” | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Jan 1, 2026 | As the Trump Administration’s new travel restrictions for 21 countries go into effect, DHS issues a memo halting all immigration applications from these countries as well as announcing plans to reassess applications (PDF) from as early as January 20, 2021. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Dec 31, 2025 | After seven deaths were reported in the month of December, the year closes with the highest number of deaths reported in ICE custody in over two decades. Thirty-two immigrants died in detention in 2025, matching the previous record set in 2004. | $tags: deaths |
| Dec 29, 2025 | Federal judge Vince G. Chhabria issues a preliminary injunction (PDF) that allows ICE to obtain “biographical, contact, and location information” about all Medicaid recipients as part of immigration enforcement, but he blocks the release of health information (California v. HHS). | $tags: surveillance and data; lawsuits |
| Dec 24, 2025 | ICE officers shoot Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins in Glen Burnie, MD, during a targeted stop. They claim that another injured immigrant was in the van Sousa-Martins was driving, but local police reports later clarify that the injured passenger was actually in the ICE vehicle. | $tags: street violence |
| Dec 23, 2025 | Federal judge Beryl A. Howell finds the Trump administration’s imposition of a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications lawful and grounded in the President’s authority. Within a week, plaintiffs appeal the decision to the DC Circuit Court (Chamber of Commerce v. DHS). | $cases: Chamber of Commerce v. DHS $tags: lawsuits; visa restrictions |
| Dec 23, 2025 | The Supreme Court denies the Trump administration’s request to stay a lower court’s order blocking the deployment of federalized National Guard troops in the Chicago area (Illinois v. Trump). | $cases: Illinois v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Dec 22, 2025 | Judge Boasberg orders the Trump administration to retrieve all noncitizens sent to the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador on March 15 and 16 under the Alien Enemies Act, or to otherwise give them hearings that provide due process. The court order requires the government to report its plans for doing so by January 5, 2026 (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Dec 18, 2025 | Federal judge Sunshine Sykes delivers a final judgment (PDF) vacating the administration’s mandatory detention policy and ruling that a nationwide class of immigrants are not subject to mandatory detention and remain eligible for bond hearings (Bautista v. Santacruz). | $cases: Bautista v. Santacruz $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention |
| Dec 18, 2025 | President Trump suspends the diversity visa program after learning that the suspect in recent shootings at MIT and Brown University had been a recipient. The program offers up to 50,000 visas annually via lottery to people from countries with low immigration rates to the US. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Dec 17, 2025 | A group of Minnesotans sues the Department of Homeland Security, arguing that ICE and CBP violence against observers, journalists, demonstrators, and other members of the public in Minneapolis–St. Paul violates their First and Fourth Amendment rights (Tincher v. Noem). | $cases: Tincher v. Noem $tags: targeting protesters and observers; lawsuits; mass detention |
| Dec 17, 2025 | ICE deports Fei Zheng and his six-year-old son, Yuanxin Zheng, to China together after separating them on November 26. Their arrest and separation by ICE spurred outrage among New York City leaders and the younger Zheng’s school community. | $tags: warrantless arrests |
| Dec 17, 2025 | Judge Jia Cobb temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s policy requiring members of Congress to provide at least seven days’ notice for visits to DHS immigration detention facilities (Neguse v. ICE). | $cases: Neguse v. ICE $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| Dec 17, 2025 | Recent analysis shows that more than 117,000 immigrants face potential deportation because the Trump administration is re-opening previous administratively closed immigration cases, using a process known as “re-calendaring.” More than half of the immigrants affected have lived in the US for a decade or more. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Dec 16, 2025 | The Trump administration instructs US Customs and Immigrations Services field offices to submit 100–200 denaturalization cases per month to the Office of Immigration Litigation during fiscal year 2026. This monthly quota is more than 10 times higher than the total annual number of denaturalizations in recent years. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Dec 15, 2025 | The Trump administration terminates family reunification parole for Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras, which had allowed immigrants awaiting visas to be reunited with close family members who are US citizens or legal permanent residents. | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Dec 14, 2025 | ICE arrests Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales (a US citizen) during a traffic stop, detains her, and then refuses to accept her US birth certificate and other records as evidence of citizenship. While her attorneys are filing a writ of habeas corpus to keep her from being transferred out of state, ICE transfers her from Maryland to Louisiana. | $tags: warrantless arrests; due process/habeas |
| Dec 12, 2025 | The Trump Administration announces an end to Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopia. There are approximately 5,000 Ethiopians living in the US under protected status; they will have until February 13, 2026, to either find another legal way to stay in the country or “leave voluntarily.” | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Dec 11, 2025 | DHS officers arrest Kheilin Valero Marcano, Stiven Arrieta Prieto, and their baby Amalia at a routine immigration check-in in El Paso, Texas, and send them to Dilley Immigration Processing Center. The family are Venezuelan and Mexican nationals with a pending asylum claim. | $cases: A.A.V. (one-year-old) v. Rodriguez $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests; mass detention |
| Dec 11, 2025 | Judge Paula Xinis finds that the Department of Homeland Security never issued a valid removal order for Kilmar Abrego Garcia and has unlawfully detained him since his return from El Salvador. Immediately after Abrego Garcia’s release, ICE orders him to report to a “check-in,” and on the following day, Judge Xinis grants his lawyers’ request to bar ICE from re-arresting him a second time (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits |
| Dec 10, 2025 | Judge Charles Breyer temporarily blocks the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles and stays his ruling until December 15 to allow for an appeal (Newsom v. Trump). | $cases: Newsom v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Dec 9, 2025 | CBP proposes a rule (PDF) requiring visitors from visa waiver countries to provide extensive personal information in visa applications, including five years of social media history, email and IP addresses used in the last ten years, and details about family members. The proposed rule would affect over 2.2 million visitors, who would also have to submit photos of their faces through an app that records device location and metadata from the submitted images. | $tags: ideological screening; surveillance and data; visa restrictions |
| Dec 9, 2025 | Governor Pritzker of Illinois signs a bill shielding immigrants from federal immigration enforcement near courthouses, universities, hospitals, and day cares. | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Dec 5, 2025 | Federal immigration agents pepper-spray Representative Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), clearly identified members of the press, and protesters at an immigration raid on a Tucson taqueria after Grijalva identifies herself as a member of Congress and asks the agents for clarification. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Dec 3, 2025 | The day after President Trump delivers a racist tirade from the Oval Office about Somali immigrants and announces his intention of deploying the National Guard to New Orleans, the administration launches immigration enforcement operations in New Orleans and Minneapolis. The New Orleans City Council immediately provides an online portal for residents to report abuses by ICE and CBP. | $tags: surges and operations; militarization; state and local government opposition |
| Dec 2, 2025 | Federal judge Beryl A. Howell temporarily blocks warrantless immigration arrests in Washington, DC, unless agents show probable cause to believe that each person arrested was a flight risk (Escobar Molina v. DHS). | $cases: Escobar Molina v. DHS $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests |
| Dec 2, 2025 | Following the arrest of an Afghan national accused of shooting two National Guard troops in Washington, DC, the US pauses all pending immigration applications from 19 countries, including Afghanistan. This affects naturalization ceremonies, asylum requests, and green card applications, including some already-approved requests. ICE also detains more than two dozen Afghan immigrants, including people who had assisted US forces in Afghanistan, in apparent response to the shooting. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Dec 2, 2025 | Guatemalan national Francisco Gasper Andres dies in an El Paso hospital after being held for months at Camp East Montana Detention Center, and DHS does not report his death until a full week later, after an inquiry from a member of Congress. The camp, which opened in August as a still-active construction site, has reportedly violated at least 60 federal standards, including failing to properly monitor detainees’ health conditions. | $tags: deaths; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Dec 2, 2025 | The State Department sends a memo instructing all US embassies and consulates to screen H-1B visa applicants for evidence that they or their accompanying family members have worked in online anti-disinformation or trust and safety roles, and to refuse visas to anyone they consider to have been “responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States.” | $tags: ideological screening; visa restrictions |
| Nov 26, 2025 | At a routine immigration check-in in New York City, ICE arrests and separates a Chinese father and his 6-year-old son. ICE has detained 600 immigrant children this year, separating many of them from their families. | $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention |
| Nov 26, 2025 | Reports surface of increased arrests of foreign-born spouses of US citizens at their green card interviews, justified by minor — and rarely enforced — visa violations. | $tags: warrantless arrests |
| Nov 25, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security terminates Temporary Protected Status for people from Myanmar (Burma), citing the military junta’s official ending of the country’s state of emergency. About 4,000 refugees will be forced to return to Myanmar, which has not yet recovered from a devastating earthquake and an ongoing civil war characterized by mass atrocities and impending famine. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Nov 21, 2025 | Federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly finds that an IRS agreement to share taxpayer data with ICE is probably unlawful and blocks further data sharing as the case proceeds (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS $tags: lawsuits; surveillance and data |
| Nov 21, 2025 | The Department of Justice fires at least 5 San Francisco immigration court judges, leaving only 9 in the city, down from 21 at the beginning of 2025. Less than two weeks later, on December 1, the DOJ fires 8 New York City immigration judges, and one judge ousted earlier in 2025 sues the federal government for firing her in alleged violation of her rights under the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. | $tags: sabotaging immigration courts; targeting judges |
| Nov 21, 2025 | United Farm Workers of America files suit against the federal government for drastically cutting wages for temporary agricultural workers on H-2A (guest worker) visas (United Farm Workers v. Department of Labor). | $cases: United Farm Workers v. Department of Labor $tags: lawsuits |
| Nov 20, 2025 | Federal judge Georgia Alexakis dismisses assault and interference charges against Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman shot repeatedly by a Border Patrol agent, allegedly in self defense. Federal prosecutors had moved to drop their own case after the agent was found to have sent text messages boasting about shooting Martinez (US v. Martinez). | $cases: US v. Martinez $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers |
| Nov 20, 2025 | Judge Sunshine Sykes rules that the vast expansion of mandatory detention to include tens of thousands of immigrants previously eligible for bond hearings is unlawful. Five days later, the judge certifies a national class that includes all immigrants who have been unlawfully denied hearings, requiring that they receive due process (Bautista v. Santacruz). | $cases: Bautista v. Santacruz $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention |
| Nov 19, 2025 | An appeals court stays Judge Sara Ellis’s permanent injunction against the excessive use of force by ICE and CBP agents in Chicago while it considers the Trump administration’s appeal. The following day, Judge Ellis issues a written opinion (PDF) detailing her reasoning in the stayed injunction (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem). | $cases: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers |
| Nov 19, 2025 | An appeals court temporarily stays Judge Karin Immergut’s ruling blocking the federalization of the Oregon National Guard, but does not stay her block on deploying the Guard in Portland, OR. The appeals court further delays their consideration of a less temporary stay pending a Supreme Court ruling in a similar case in Chicago (Oregon v. Trump). | $cases: Oregon v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Nov 18, 2025 | 404 Media reports that an ICE contractor is launching a pilot program to enlist members of the general public to physically locate immigrants for a payment of $300 per verified address. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Nov 17, 2025 | A report surfaces that DOJ attorneys have been briefed on plans for ICE and Customs and Border Patrol to raid Spanish-speaking churches during the winter holiday season. One attorney says that, following Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor in New York City, the plan has expanded to include mosques and “liberal synagogues.” | $tags: surges and operations |
| Nov 17, 2025 | Nearly 30,000 children (or about 21% of all enrolled students) are reported absent from schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, where immigration enforcement agencies claim to have arrested more than 130 people. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Nov 16, 2025 | A New York Times investigation reveals that the Trump administration’s mass reassignments of DHS agents to immigration enforcement have compromised public safety work and efforts to combat child sexual abuse, human trafficking, and terrorism. | |
| Nov 15, 2025 | Federal agents led by Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino descend on Charlotte, NC, reportedly taking local officials by surprise and arresting 81 people. Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, stopped collaborating with ICE after electing a new sheriff in 2018, but in 2024 a Republican supermajority in the General Assembly overrode the governor’s veto to pass a state-wide law mandating cooperation. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Nov 14, 2025 | Local tribal leaders confirm that DHS is seeking to house detained immigrants in facilities on tribal reservations in Washington State, where the state would lack authority, and the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, would not apply. | $tags: mass detention |
| Nov 14, 2025 | Reports surface that the Trump administration is drafting policy to make it more difficult for immigrants from countries on the travel ban list to obtain green cards. This change would apply not only to new applicants but to those already in the US. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Nov 14, 2025 | State and local police arrest 21 peaceful protesters, including at least 7members of the clergy, for standing outside a protest zone at the Broadview DHS detention facility. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Nov 14, 2025 | The Department of Justice discloses a list of 614 Chicago residents arrested early in its immigration raids; though it claims to have targeted violent criminals, only 2.6% of the arrestees have criminal records. The next day, reports surface that DHS agents in Chicago are racially profiling, detaining, and arresting US citizens and green card holders. | $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention |
| Nov 13, 2025 | Judge Frimpong rules that federal immigration agencies have partly blocked detainees’ access to legal counsel in Los Angeles and extends her earlier order requiring the government to allow lawyers to see their clients (Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem). | $cases: Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; warrantless arrests |
| Nov 12, 2025 | A group of 40 congressional Democrats urge 19 Democratic governors to block ICE’s access to a law enforcement database of drivers license and registration information, which ICE and DHS have used for almost 900,000 searches in the year prior to October 1, 2025. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Nov 12, 2025 | After a near-unanimous vote, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemns the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement practices. In their statement they raise concerns about inhumane conditions in detention centers, fear and anxiety in their communities, and “arbitrary” revocations of immigration status, and they state their opposition to mass deportation, calling for “meaningful immigration reform.” | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Nov 12, 2025 | The Social Security Administration (SSA) publishes an official notice (PDF) that it will share citizenship and immigration information with DHS, corroborating reports that it has been sharing this data. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Nov 11, 2025 | Reports surface that some recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have been targeted by immigration enforcement despite DACA’s legal protections from detention and deportation. An advocacy organization has assembled media reports of nearly 20 DACA recipients detained in 2025. | $tags: warrantless arrests; revoking legal status |
| Nov 7, 2025 | Judge Immergut issues a final order permanently blocking the administration from deploying federalized National Guard troops in Portland, OR (Oregon v. Trump). | $cases: Oregon v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Nov 6, 2025 | A jury finds a Washington, DC, Air Force veteran who threw a sandwich at a Border Patrol agent not guilty of misdemeanor assault. The man stated that he was trying to distract agents from conducting an immigration raid on a nearby gay club holding a “Latin” night. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Nov 6, 2025 | Judge Ellis issues a preliminary injunction blocking the use of force against peaceful protesters, journalists, and other observers of immigration enforcement in Chicago, finding that the Trump administration’s evidence in support of their violent response is “simply not credible” (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem). | $cases: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Nov 6, 2025 | Secretary of State Marco Rubio issues new guidance to US consulates and embassies widely expanding criteria for visa denials, including chronic health issues, like heart disease and diabetes, as well as their age, number of dependents, and weight. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Nov 6, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security announces the termination of Temporary Protected Status for people from South Sudan, claiming the country no longer qualifies. About 230 South Sudanese nationals will be forced to return, though the United Nations warns of continued warfare, mass sexual violence, starvation, and the displacement of 2.7 million civilians. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Nov 3, 2025 | DHS proposes a rule (PDF) that vastly expands the agency’s collection of biometric data, including face and iris scans, voice prints, and DNA. Under this rule, DHS will require biometrics from “any applicant, petitioner, sponsor, supporter, derivative, dependent, beneficiary, or individual filing or associated with a benefit request or other request or collection of information,” including US citizens, green card holders, and children. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Nov 2, 2025 | After a three-day trial, Judge Immergut issues a preliminary ruling that the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to Portland, OR, is probably unlawful, with a final ruling planned for November 7 (Oregon v. Trump). | $cases: Oregon v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Oct 31, 2025 | 404 Media publishes a Department of Homeland Security document stating that DHS agents will not permit anyone — including US citizens — to refuse to have their faces scanned with Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app that will store images for 15 years. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Oct 31, 2025 | DHS formalizes and expands the use of its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) tool to purge state voter rolls of suspected noncitizens. SAVE relies on notoriously patchy and unaccountable datasets and was not designed for voter verification; it could bar many US citizens from voting and expose their data to breaches and misuse. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Oct 31, 2025 | Two nonprofit organizations, Campaign Legal Center and American Oversight, sue DHS, the Social Security Administration, and USCIS for information on the transformation of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) tool into a consolidated — but dangerously incomplete — voter verification system (Campaign Legal Center v. SSA; Campaign Legal Center v. USCIS; Campaign Legal Center v. DHS). | $cases: Campaign Legal Center v. Social Security Administration; Campaign Legal Center v. US Citizenship and Immigration Services; Campaign Legal Center v. DHS $tags: surveillance and data; lawsuits |
| Oct 30, 2025 | Immigrants in Oregon sue DHS officials for “making warrantless arrests without probable cause” (M-J-M-A v. Wamsley). | $cases: M-J-M-A v. Wamsley $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests |
| Oct 30, 2025 | In Ontario, CA, an ICE officer shoots 25-year-old Carlos Jimenez, who had pulled over to ask immigration agents to move away from an area where children would soon be waiting for their school bus. Lawyers for Jimenez, a US citizen, say he was on his way to work when he stopped to help and was shot as he tried to leave; federal officials say that Jimenez tried to run over agents with his car and have charged him with assault. | $tags: street violence; targeting protesters and observers |
| Oct 30, 2025 | In the days before Halloween, people in tactical gear and presumed to be federal immigration agents wear horror-themed masks in Los Angeles, CBP agents in Chicago drag a 67-year old man from his car and break his ribs in front of children who had gathered for a Halloween parade, and an Alabama sheriff comes under scrutiny for racist immigration-themed holiday decorations. | $tags: street violence |
| Oct 30, 2025 | The Trump Administration slashes the number of refugees the US will admit from 125,000 in 2022–2025 to 7,500 in 2026, with strong preference given to (white) Afrikaners from South Africa, who the administration claims face “unjust racial discrimination.” | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Oct 30, 2025 | US Citizenship and Immigration Services ends automatic extensions for work permits. USCIS takes more than 180 days to process 54% of all work permit applications; without extensions to accommodate this long-standing backlog, thousands of lawfully present immigrants will lose their ability to work. | |
| Oct 29, 2025 | 404 Media publishes a statement from House Homeland Security Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-MS) that DHS agents are using the Mobile Fortify facial recognition app for “definitive” proof of immigration status, superseding proof of citizenship including US birth certificates. This follows recent video evidence of ICE and CPB agents using the app during “Kavanaugh stops” in US cities. | $tags: surveillance and data; warrantless arrests |
| Oct 29, 2025 | IRS documents reveal that ICE requested information about 1.27 million taxpayers, more than 47,000 of whom the IRS deemed matches for people ICE was seeking (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS $tags: surveillance and data; lawsuits |
| Oct 28, 2025 | A majority of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals votes to re-hear the appeal of a district court’s ruling that blocked National Guard deployments to Portland, OR. This decision vacates a previous decision by two appeals court judges; a larger panel will now hear the appeal (Oregon v. Trump). | $cases: Oregon v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Oct 28, 2025 | Following on her order requiring immigration agents to wear body cameras and identification, Judge Ellis clarifies (PDF)that CBP agents must wear both body cameras and conspicuous, unobscured identification numbers — and that CBP Commander Gregory Bovino must himself wear a body camera and provide daily reports on use of force in Chicago. Three days later, a federal appeals court blocks the requirement that Bovino report to the judge daily (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem). | $cases: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Oct 27, 2025 | Reports surface that the Trump administration is purging ICE field office directors, with plans to remove 12 of 25 directors and replace at least 6 of them with officers from Customs and Border Patrol, an agency associated with many of the most aggressive raids in US cities. | |
| Oct 24, 2025 | The Department of Justice files separate appeals to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in two habeas corpus cases (Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi) (Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara). | $cases: Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi; Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention |
| Oct 23, 2025 | A Washington, DC, protester arrested for following a National Guard patrol while playing the Star Wars Imperial March sues the District of Columbia, four police officers, and a member of the Ohio National Guard (O’Hara v. Beck). | $cases: O’Hara v. Beck $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers |
| Oct 23, 2025 | Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh is indicted with five others on charges of impeding federal officers and conspiring to do so after she allegedly banged on ICE vehicles during a protest at the Broadview, IL, ICE facility on September 26, 2025 (US v. Rabbitt). | $cases: US v. Rabbitt $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers |
| Oct 23. 2025 | Judge John A. Kazen partially grants Jose Padron Covarrubius‘s petition for habeas corpus, effectively approving his release based on an earlier bond hearing (Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara). | $cases: Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas |
| Oct 23, 2025 | Reports surface that DHS and the Department of Defense will funnel $10 billion through the US Navy to hire private companies to build and maintain migrant detention camps that will hold up to 10,000 detainees each. | $tags: mass detention |
| Oct 22, 2025 | The day after DHS arrests nine foreign nationals and four American citizens during a chaotic raid in Manhattan’s Chinatown, New York Attorney General Letitia James launches a web portal to collect photo and video evidence from people observing ICE raids throughout the state. | $tags: surges and operations; warrantless arrests; state and local government opposition |
| Oct 22, 2025 | The Illinois Secretary of State announces a “Plate Watch Hotline” after reports of illegal license-plate swapping by DHS agents in Chicago. The next day, Governor JB Pritzker announces the Illinois Accountability Commission to “create a public record of the conduct of federal agents during ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ and the Trump Administration’s military-style operations throughout the Chicagoland area.” | $tags: surges and operations |
| Oct 21, 2025 | Federal immigration agents shoot and then arrest citizen journalist Carlitos Ricardo Parias (who streams on TikTok as Richard LA) while Parias is trapped in his boxed-in car. Agents also shoot a US Marshal during the arrest and aim their guns at LAPD officers arriving on the scene. | $tags: street violence |
| Oct 20, 2025 | A federal appeals court stays Judge Immergut’s order that paused federal deployment of the Oregon National Guard in Portland, OR, while the case proceeds. According to one of the three judges on the appeals panel — and Oregon’s governor — the judge’s second order, which blocks the deployment to Oregon of Guard troops from any state, remains in force, while the other two judges say that both orders are now inactive (Oregon v. Trump). | $cases: Oregon v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Oct 20, 2025 | Reports surface that the Trump administration is expanding its network of local and state police involved in immigration enforcement and is partnering with state and local organizations that handle environmental and marine protection, lottery oversight, gaming, and campus security at universities. This expansion adds to the roughly 35,000 members of the military deployed inside the US and the 14,500 federal law enforcement officers diverted to immigration enforcement. | $tags: militarization |
| Oct 19, 2025 | ICE joins an FBI illegal gambling raid on an Idaho racetrack frequented by Latino families and detains all attendees (roughly 400 people) for several hours, zip-tying young children and teenagers. While only five people are arrested for illegal gambling, ICE arrests 105 on immigration charges. | $tags: warrantless arrests; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Oct 17, 2025 | Protesters outside the Broadview ICE facility near Chicago claim that state police told them they could protest in the street but then attacked them with billy clubs for doing so. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; street violence |
| Oct 16, 2025 | Judge Ellis orders federal officers in Chicago to wear body cameras after she reviews footage suggesting that they are continuing to use the violent tactics she restricted in her restraining order on October 9, 2025. Four days later, Judge Ellis questions DHS officers about their continued use of force and chemical weapons (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem). | $cases: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Oct 16, 2025 | Reports surface that at least 50 US citizens have been detained over their immigration status and about 130 have been arrested for allegedly assaulting officers or interfering in arrests. Detained citizens have been beaten, tased, and kicked, and many have been held for days without access to their families or lawyers. | $tags: warrantless arrests; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; mass detention |
| Oct 16, 2025 | The Cook County, Illinois, Board of Commissioners issues an executive order (PDF) prohibiting ICE from using county “property, resources, and personnel for civil immigration enforcement activities.” | $tags: state and local government opposition |
| Oct 16, 2025 | The US Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby, sues the Trump administration, challenging the new $100,000 H-1B visa application fee (Chamber of Commerce v. DHS). | $cases: Chamber of Commerce v. DHS $tags: lawsuits; visa restrictions |
| Oct 16, 2025 | Three major labor unions sue the Trump administration over its massive inter-agency effort to surveil visa and green card holders on social media and silence those who express dissent (UAW v. Department of State). | $cases: UAW v. Department of State $tags: lawsuits; ideological screening; surveillance and data |
| Oct 15, 2025 | Federal agents arrest a comedian dressed in a giraffe onesie singing an anti-ICE version of Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” outside an ICE field office in Portland, OR. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Oct 14, 2025 | The State Department announces on social media that it has revoked the visas of six foreign nationals (from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Paraguay, and South Africa) for their posts “celebrating” the death of right-wing influencer and Trump ally Charlie Kirk. | $tags: ideological screening; targeting political opponents |
| Oct 12, 2025 | Federal agents at an ICE facility in Portland, OR, arrest a clarinetist playing the Ghostbusters theme song with her bandmates, many of whom were wearing banana costumes. The clarinetist was taken across state lines to the Clark County Jail in Vancouver, WA, where she spent three nights before being released pending further court proceedings. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Oct 11, 2025 | A federal court of appeals allows the Trump administration to retain control of National Guard troops sent to Illinois but blocks their deployment in Chicago. Five days later, the court of appeals reaffirms and explains its ruling, and the day after that, the Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to contradict the appeals court’s ruling altogether (Illinois v. Trump). | $cases: Illinois v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Oct 11, 2025 | Catholic priests, nuns, and lay leaders attempting to deliver Holy Communion to detainees at the Broadview ICE facility near Chicago are turned away without explanation. The following day, a Chicago-area priest warns attendees at Sunday Mass about federal immigration agents outside the church, and neighbors form a human chain to guide parishioners safely home. | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Oct 9, 2025 | Federal judge Sara Ellis issues a temporary restraining order forbidding arrests of journalists and nonviolent protesters — and the use of physical violence and chemical weapons against them — without probable cause or an immediate threat (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem). | $cases: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Oct 7, 2025 | Federal judge Jeffrey Cummings orders ICE to free hundreds of people it had detained in the Chicago area, finding that ICE violated the Castañon Nava federal consent decree against warrantless immigration arrests (Castañon Nava v. DHS). | $cases: Castañon Nava v. Department of Homeland Security $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention |
| Oct 7, 2025 | Judge Lee Hyman Rosenthal rules that Victor Buenrostro Mendez must be released or given a bond hearing by October 21, but she denies his request for a temporary restraining order (Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi). | $cases: Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas |
| Oct 6, 2025 | Several groups of Chicago journalists sue the federal government for its use of rubber bullets and tear gas against journalists covering demonstrations at the Broadview ICE facility. The suit comes shortly after Broadview officials announce that they have opened three criminal investigations into ICE’s activities (Chicago Headline Club v. Noem). | $cases: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Oct 6, 2025 | The state of Illinois and the city of Chicago file suit against the Trump administration’s attempt to take control of Illinois’s National Guard and deploy them, along with already federalized troops from Texas, for immigration enforcement in Chicago. Federal judge April Perry declines to immediately block the deployment until she has had more time to review the state’s request (Illinois v. Trump). | $cases: Illinois v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Oct 4, 2025 | A US Border Patrol agent shoots Chicago resident Marimar Martinez after she allegedly uses her vehicle to ram and “box in” federal agents, according to DHS. After she is discharged from the hospital, the federal government charges Martinez with using her vehicle to assault and interfere with federal agents (US v. Martinez). | $cases: US v. Martinez $tags: lawsuits; street violence; targeting protesters and observers |
| Oct 4, 2025 | Federal judge Karin J. Immergut temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s attempt to take control of the Oregon National Guard and deploy them to Portland, OR, for immigration enforcement. The following day, the administration deploys California National Guard troops to Oregon and attempts to send members of the Texas Guard, but Judge Immergut issues a second order blocking the use of any federalized troops in Oregon while the case proceeds (Oregon v. Trump). | $cases: Oregon v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Oct 4, 2025 | Illinois governor JB Pritzker announces that the Trump administration is taking control of the Illinois National Guard for use in support of DHS activity in Chicago. The following day, Gov. Pritzker announces that the administration is also deploying National Guard troops from Texas to Chicago. | $tags: militarization |
| Oct. 3, 2025 | A coalition of labor, healthcare, higher education, and religious organizations sues the Trump administration in response to its September 19 proclamation requiring a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, claiming that the order is unlawful under the Administrative Procedures Act (Global Nurse Force v. Trump). | $cases: Global Nurse Force v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; visa restrictions |
| Oct 3, 2025 | DHS claims to have arrested more than 1,000 undocumented people in its Chicago immigration enforcement “blitz.” No figures are provided on the number of lawfully present immigrants and US citizens detained during the raids. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Oct 3, 2025 | ICE deports Mario Guevara, a Spanish-language journalist known for livestreaming immigration raids, after 110 days in detention. Guevara, whose lawyers say he has a work permit and a Social Security number, was arrested on June 14 while livestreaming a “No Kings” protest near Atlanta, GA. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Oct 3, 2025 | ICE stops paying third-party medical providers supplying medications and care for detainees, leaving it unclear whether they can access required treatments. Payouts stop because the Department of Veterans Affairs abruptly canceled a contract to handle ICE’s third-party reimbursement claims, but the lapse does not come to light until mid-January 2026, after ICE announces that it will not begin processing reimbursement claims itself until April 30, 2026, at the earliest. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Oct 3, 2025 | The Supreme Court issues a shadow-docket ruling allowing the Trump administration to strip the temporary protected status of Venezuelan nationals living in the US while a legal challenge proceeds, rendering hundreds of thousands of people immediately deportable (National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Oct 2, 2025 | The Labor Department warns that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is cutting off the supply of agricultural labor, thus harming farmers and risking higher food prices for Americans. As of 2022, roughly two-thirds of agricultural workers were noncitizen immigrants. | |
| Oct 1, 2025 | The US government partially shuts down, but ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, and immigration courts keep operating; unlike many other federal workers, ICE and CBP employees continue to be paid during the shutdown. US Citizenship and Immigration Services also stays open, but visa interviews, hiring eligibility checks, and other services may be delayed, adding to a pre-existing backlog. | |
| Sep 30, 2025 | Federal judge William G. Young rules that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment in its attempts to detain and deport noncitizen students and professors who expressed support for Palestine. Judge Young also rules (PDF)that lawfully present noncitizens have the same First Amendment protections as US citizens (American Association of University Professors v. Rubio). | $cases: American Association of University Professors v. Rubio $tags: lawsuits; targeting political opponents |
| Sep 30, 2025 | In the early hours of September 30, 300 federal agents mount a military-style raid on a Chicago apartment building, with officers rappelling from helicopters, throwing flash-bang grenades, kicking down doors, and reportedly zip-tying children and separating them from their families. After violently detaining almost every adult and child in the 130-unit building, sorting them by perceived race, and holding them in vans for hours, DHS arrests a total of 37 people. | $tags: surges and operations; street violence |
| Sep 30, 2025 | Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a US citizen working in construction, files a class action complaint against DHS for arresting and detaining him twice, claiming wrongful detention due to racial profiling. The complaint asks that Venegas be allowed to sue on behalf of citizens and lawful residents who have been or will be subjected to warrantless immigration raids (Venegas v. Homan). | $cases: Venegas v. Homan $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests |
| Sep 29, 2025 | An ICE agent relieved from duty on September 26, pending investigation, returns to duty. He had been caught on video outside a Manhattan immigration court shoving a woman to the ground while other agents were arresting her husband. | |
| Sep 29, 2025 | CoreCivic, a private prison company, announces contracts with ICE to re-open existing prisons in Leavenworth, KS, and California City, CA, as immigration detention centers despite an ongoing lawsuit and associated injunction preventing the Leavenworth facility from accepting detainees. | $tags: mass detention |
| Sep 28, 2025 | Oregon and the City of Portland file suit against the Trump administration’s planned deployment of federalized National Guard troops to Portland, OR, for immigration enforcement (Oregon v. Trump). | $cases: Oregon v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Sep 27, 2025 | President Trump announces on social media that he is sending National Guard troops into Portland, OR. The status of the order is unclear for several days as the president makes contradictory statements, but by October 1, Guard members appear to be training at a base on the Oregon coast in preparation for deployment. | $tags: militarization |
| Sep 26, 2025 | The Trump Administration requests expedited Supreme Court review of their appeals in two cases that blocked the executive order ending birthright citizenship. | $tags: birthright citizenship |
| Sep 25, 2025 | Immigration organization CASA and four people living in Washington, DC, sue the Trump administration over its warrantless arrests in the District, which they allege operated via racial profiling and unjustly detained lawfully present noncitizens — sometimes for weeks — despite their lawful status (Escobar Molina v. DHS). | $cases: Escobar Molina v. DHS $tags: lawsuits; warrantless arrests |
| Sep 23, 2025 | After two deaths at an ICE detention center in Georgia, Democratic Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff write a letter addressed to Kristi Noem at DHS and Todd Lyons at ICE (PDF) about conditions in detention centers and delays in publicly reporting fatalities. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Sep 23, 2025 | Reports surface that the Trump administration has fired 20 more immigration judges. Of the 700 judges working in the immigration courts as of early January, at least 125 have now been fired or have resigned, retired, or accepted reassignment; the courts are now so backlogged that some current cases will not be heard until 2029. | $tags: sabotaging immigration courts; targeting judges |
| Sep 19, 2025 | DHS claims its deportation operation in Chicago has resulted in about 550 arrests. During the resulting protests, federal agents fire tear gas and projectiles at demonstrators at its Broadview processing facility; video shows a masked agent throwing a congressional candidate to the ground. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Sep 19, 2025 | The White House issues a proclamation establishing a “Gold Card” wealth-based visa program in which individuals may pay the Department of Commerce $1 million — down from a proposed $5 million — for an expedited process to US permanent residency. | |
| Sep 19, 2025 | The White House issues a proclamation that applications for H-1B visas must include a payment of $100,000, up from the $2,000–$5,000 in processing and filing fees previously paid by US employers. The next day, after widespread turmoil in the business world, the administration clarifies that the fee would not apply to current visa holders. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Sep 18, 2025 | A federal appeals court upholds Judge Chen’s March 31 order blocking the termination of temporary protected status for Venezuelan and Haitian nationals. The next day, the Trump administration appeals the ruling to the Supreme Court (National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Sep 18, 2025 | Federal judge Timothy J. Kelly blocks the rapid deportation of more than 300 unaccompanied Guatemalan children. The Trump administration had tried to deport the children in the middle of the night over Labor Day weekend, claiming their parents had asked for them to be returned to Guatemala — a claim the judge found false (L.G.M.L. v. Noem). | $cases: L.G.M.L. v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; rapid deportation |
| Sep 18, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security arrests New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and 10 other Democratic elected officials for attempting to inspect detainee conditions inside 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. DHS also arrests 70 protesters outside the building, including public advocate Jumaane D. Williams and other elected officials. | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention; targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Sep 17, 2025 | Immigration judge Jamee Comans orders that Mahmoud Khalil be deported to Syria or Algeria because of alleged omissions on his green card application (Khalil v. Joyce). | $cases: Khalil v. Joyce $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Sep 17, 2025 | Judge Kaplan issues a preliminary injunction ordering ICE to continue improving conditions for detained immigrants held at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan (Barco Mercado v. Noem). | $cases: Barco Mercado v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Sep 12, 2025 | A federal appeals court allows the Trump administration to continue removal of legal status for more than 400,000 immigrants while their case against the government proceeds. The suit seeks to protect people covered by various humanitarian immigration pathways (CHNV parole, Operation Allies Welcome, and Uniting for Ukraine/U4U) (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Sep 12, 2025 | An ICE agent shoots and kills Mexican citizen Silverio Villegas González during an attempted immigration stop in Chicago. The government of Mexico and the governor of Illinois have since called for a full investigation into the shooting. | $tags: deaths |
| Sep 12, 2025 | The circuit court that had paused Judge Jia Cobb’s block on the rapid deportation of immigrants covered by humanitarian parole dissolves its stay and refuses to order a stay pending appeal (CHIRLA v. Noem). | $cases: Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections; rapid deportation |
| Sep 10, 2025 | Federal judge Hernán D. Vera orders DHS not to threaten or assault journalists and legal observers at protests in Southern California and not to use less-lethal weapons on anyone who doesn’t pose a threat of “imminent harm” (LA Press Club v. Noem). | $cases: LA Press Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Sep 8, 2025 | The Supreme Court stays Judge Frimpong’s ruling preventing the Trump administration from racially profiling Californians in immigration raids (Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem). | $cases: Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; warrantless arrests |
| Sep 8, 2025 | The Trump administration announces a major deportation operation in Chicago. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Sep 5, 2025 | Judge Chen blocks the administration’s termination of temporary protected status for Haitian and Venezuelan nationals, making a summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. One week later, Judge Chen orders the administration to update the relevant federal website to clarify that the TPS holders are legally allowed to remain in the US (National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Sep 5, 2025 | The Board of Immigration Appeals affirms an ICE policy change stripping millions of undocumented immigrants of their right to seek release on bond if they are ever detained. Under this decision, these immigrants will face mandatory detention for months or years as their cases proceed; a separate federal case is pending on this issue. | $tags: due process/habeas |
| Sep 4, 2025 | A federal appeals court pauses Judge Williams’s order to cease construction and operations at the Florida Everglades detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” The court agreed with the government’s claim that the detention center is not a federal operation and therefore not subject to federal environmental review rules (Friends of the Everglades v. Noem). | $cases: Friends of the Everglades v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; mass detention |
| Sep 4, 2025 | A federal appeals court temporarily stays Judge Breyer’s September 2 injunction (PDF) against the deployment of federal troops as law enforcement in California (Newsom v. Trump). | $cases: Newsom v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Sep 4, 2025 | Using a warrant targeting four Latino workers, ICE raids a Hyundai/LG Energy battery plant being constructed in Georgia and arrests at least 475 people, most of them South Korean citizens on visas, but some of them — by ICE’s own admission — US citizens and lawful permanent residents. Three days later, the South Korean government reaches a deal with the US to release detained South Korean citizens, while Latino workers whose families claim they have valid work permits remain in detention. | $tags: warrantless arrests |
| Sep 3, 2025 | A second attempt to censure Representative LaMonica McIver (NJ) and remove her from the House Committee on Homeland Security fails. The attempt was based on Rep. McIver’s alleged actions during the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka at an immigration detention facility in Newark, NJ. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Sep 3, 2025 | DHS announces that ICE is opening an immigration detention center within Angola, a former slave plantation and the nation’s largest maximum-security prison; fifty-one detainees have been transferred there. Angola has a long history of abuse and mistreatment and is being sued over brutal and dangerous prison labor conditions. | $tags: mass detention |
| Sep 2, 2025 | Judge Breyer blocks deployment of federal military troops as law enforcement in California as a breach of the Posse Comitatus Act (Newsom v. Trump). | $cases: Newsom v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Sep 2, 2025 | Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth approves sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to work as temporary immigration judges — this just five days after the administration lowered the employment standards for these positions. | $tags: sabotaging immigration courts |
| Aug 31, 2025 | Lawyers for several unaccompanied children from Guatemala file an emergency class action suit against the rapid deportation without due process of hundreds of children who share their status. Federal judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan immediately issues a temporary block, halting the deportation of dozens of children who had been taken from shelters in the middle of the night and loaded onto chartered planes bound for Guatemala (L.G.M.L. v. Noem). | $cases: L.G.M.L. v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; rapid deportation |
| Aug 29, 2025 | Federal judge Jia M. Cobb blocks the administration’s rapid deportation of immigrants detained in the interior of the US (Make the Road New York v. Noem). | $cases: Make the Road New York v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; rapid deportation |
| Aug 29, 2025 | Reports surface of a violently suppressed detainee uprising in response to brutal conditions at the Everglades detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” | $tags: detention conditions; mass detention |
| Aug 25, 2025 | ICE re-arrests Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Baltimore and moves him to a detention center in Virginia. Abrego Garcia’s counsel immediately files a new habeas petition and Judge Xinis blocks his re-deportation pending a hearing (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Aug 22, 2025 | Judge Orrick grants a motion to add 34 cities and counties as plaintiffs in the suit against the Trump administration’s withdrawal of federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions. The judge extends his existing block against the administration’s actions to include these places (San Francisco v. Trump). | $cases: San Francisco v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers |
| Aug 22, 2025 | Kilmar Abrego Garcia is released. The next day, the Trump administration announces publicly that it will re-deport him to Uganda (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits |
| Aug 21, 2025 | Judge Williams issues a preliminary injunction stopping construction at the Everglades detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” preventing the intake of more detainees and ordering the takedown of fencing, lighting, power generation, and waste systems within 60 days (Friends of the Everglades v. Noem). | $cases: Friends of the Everglades v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; mass detention |
| Aug 18, 2025 | An appeals court pauses Judge Jia Cobb’s block (PDF) on the Trump administration’s expedited deportation of immigrants on humanitarian parole (CHIRLA v. Noem). | $cases: Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections; rapid deportation |
| Aug 13, 2025 | As part of the Trump administration’s takeover of Washington, DC’s police force, ICE sets up at least one immigration roadblock. DC police officers stop drivers on suspicion of minor traffic infractions and federal agents — some masked — check their papers. | $tags: warrantless arrests |
| Aug 12, 2025 | District judge Lewis A. Kaplan orders ICE to improve conditions at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan by reducing overcrowding and providing better hygiene, medical care, and access to lawyers (Barco Mercado v. Noem). | $cases: Barco Mercado v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Aug 12, 2025 | Federal judge Vince Girdhari Chhabria temporarily blocks the Department of Health and Human Services from sharing Medicaid recipients’ data with DHS for the purposes of immigration enforcement (California v. HHS). | $cases: California v. HHS $tags: lawsuits; surveillance and data |
| Aug 8, 2025 | A federal appeals panel blocks Judge Boasberg’s contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over their deportation of Venezuelan men to CECOT. On the same day, another appeals panel — sharing two of the same judges as the first — vacates Judge Boasberg’s order seeking to provide the men with due process and sends the matter back to the lower court for reconsideration based on the current state of the case (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Aug 8, 2025 | An immigrant detained at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan files suit against the Department of Homeland Security, alleging lack of medical care, lack of access to attorneys, and overcrowding (Barco Mercado v. Noem). | $cases: Barco Mercado v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Aug 8, 2025 | Reports surface that the IRS has begun large-scale sharing of taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security to be used in immigration enforcement. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Aug 8, 2025 | The Trump administration asks a federal appeals court to close remote access to the courtroom (PDF) in Newsom v. Trump to avoid revealing the identities of ICE agents and other federal personnel (Newsom v. Trump). | $cases: Newsom v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization; obstructing oversight |
| Aug 8, 2025 | Victor Buenrostro Mendez files a habeas corpus petition contesting his detention by ICE (Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi). | $cases: Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas |
| Aug 7, 2025 | Federal judge Deborah L. Boardman grants class certification for children who were born to immigrant parents and would be ineligible for citizenship under EO 14160, and pauses Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship (CASA v. Trump). | $cases: CASA v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Aug 7, 2025 | Federal judge Kathleen M. Williams pauses further construction at the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center (Friends of the Everglades v. Noem). | $cases: Friends of the Everglades v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; mass detention |
| Aug 4, 2025 | The State Department announces a pilot program to charge visitors from some countries “visa bonds” of up to $15,000. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Aug 4, 2025 | US Citizenship and Immigration Services announces that undocumented people who are related to US citizens or permanent residents and are in the process of applying for green cards will now be deportable. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Aug 2, 2025 | A panel of federal appeals court judges allows the Trump administration to broadly deny asylum claims but not to bar some immigrants fleeing torture and persecution from applying for other forms of humanitarian protection (RAICES v. Noem). | $cases: Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections |
| Aug 1, 2025 | A federal appeals court upholds Judge Frimpong’s order blocking DHS from stopping individuals without reasonable suspicion, engaging in racial profiling, and denying detained people access to legal counsel (Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem). | $cases: Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; warrantless arrests |
| Aug 1, 2025 | Federal judge Jia Cobb blocks the expedited deportation of immigrants who entered the US legally through humanitarian parole processes (CHIRLA v. Noem). | $cases: Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections; rapid deportation |
| Jul 31, 2025 | Federal judge Trina L. Thompson blocks the termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for citizens of Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua while a legal challenge proceeds (National TPS Alliance v. Noem II, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem II, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jul 30, 2025 | Five Haitians living in the US with temporary protected status (TPS) sue the Trump administration over its termination of TPS for Haitian nationals (Lesly Miot v. Trump). | $cases: Lesly Miot v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jul 30, 2025 | Twelve members of Congress challenge the Trump administration’s policy of requiring representatives to provide seven days’ notice for oversight visits to DHS immigration detention facilities (Neguse v. ICE). | $cases: Neguse v. ICE $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| July 28, 2025 | California District Court Judge Sunshine Sykes grants a temporary restraining order to four immigrants challenging DHS for detaining them without bond (Bautista v. Santacruz). | $cases: Bautista v. Santacruz $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention |
| Jul 28, 2025 | Four immigrants and three advocacy organizations challenge the Trump administration’s policy preventing DHS detainees from being released on bond while their cases proceed (Bautista v. Santacruz). | $cases: Bautista v. Santacruz $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; mass detention |
| Jul 25, 2025 | The Department of State updates visa requirements so that as of September 2, 2025, the majority of non-immigrant visa applications will require in-person interviews with consular officials. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Jul 23, 2025 | A federal court of appeals upholds Judge Coughenour’s nationwide block against the Trump administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, despite the Supreme Court’s narrowing of national injunctions against the order (Washington v. Trump). | $cases: Washington v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Jul 23, 2025 | Judge Xinis orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia released and grants him protection against immediate re-deportation (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits |
| Jul 21, 2025 | The Department of Defense withdraws the 700 Marines deployed to Los Angeles during anti-ICE protests. Members of the National Guard remain. | $tags: militarization |
| Jul 18, 2025 | Over 250 Venezuelan citizens exiled from the US to CECOT by the Trump administration are released to Venezuela in a prisoner swap between Venezuela and the US. | $tags: third-country removals |
| Jul 16, 2025 | A group of immigrants and their legal advocates file a class-action lawsuit to stop courthouse arrests by ICE (Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative v. DOJ). | $cases: Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative v. DOJ $tags: lawsuits |
| Jul 16, 2025 | Reports surface that the Trump administration has fired another 17 immigration court judges, bringing the estimated total firings to 65. With early retirements, resignations, and transfers, the total number of immigration judges removed from the system since January 20 reaches approximately 106, leaving about 600 judges to process a backlog of 3.7 million cases. | $tags: sabotaging immigration courts; targeting judges |
| Jul 13, 2025 | An ICE memo asserts that a June Supreme Court “shadow docket” ruling has cleared the way for third-country deportations with as little as six hours’ notice and without assurance that detainees will be safe from torture or persecution (D.V.D. v. DHS). | $cases: D.V.D. v. DHS $tags: third-country removals; lawsuits; detention conditions; rapid deportation |
| Jul 11, 2025 | An appeals court allows the Trump administration to resume deporting immigrants requesting asylum (PDF) without an immigration court hearing their claims (RAICES v. Noem). | $cases: Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections |
| Jul 11, 2025 | Federal judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong in Southern California blocks immigration arrests without probable cause and orders that detained immigrants be given access to counsel (Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem). | $cases: Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; warrantless arrests |
| Jul 11, 2025 | The State Department lays off more than 1,300 workers, including over a hundred who provide immigration- and refugee-related services. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Jul 10, 2025 | Federal judge Joseph Laplante issues a nationwide block on the Trump administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship and certifies a nationwide class made up of those who would be deprived of citizenship (Barbara v. Trump). | $cases: Barbara v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Jul 10, 2025 | Mahmoud Khalil files a $20M claim for false imprisonment against the DHS, ICE, and the State Department. | $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Jul 10, 2025 | Reports surface that recent Department of Homeland Security bulletins frame common protest activities — such as livestreaming, riding a bike, skateboarding, or wearing a mask — as threats or precursors to violent attacks on police. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Jul 10, 2025 | The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) restricts access to the Head Start early childhood education program based on childrens’ immigration status as part of broader service exclusions affecting both undocumented and lawful immigrants. | |
| Jul 10, 2025 | Violent federal immigration raids on two Southern California farms result in one death, many injuries, and hundreds of arrests, including of US citizens and workers whose managers and unions claim they have valid visas. | $tags: warrantless arrests; deaths; mass detention |
| Jul 8, 2025 | ICE issues a memo that strips millions of undocumented immigrants of the right to a hearing for release on bond, requiring that they remain in detention for the duration of their deportation cases — which can last months or even years. | $tags: due process/habeas |
| Jul 8, 2025 | Jose Padron Covarrubius files a habeas corpus petition contesting his detention by ICE (Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara). | $cases: Padron Covarrubias v. Vergara $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas |
| Jul 7, 2025 | CBP and ICE, under the protection of the National Guard, conduct “Operation Excalibur,” a dramatic immigration raid on a mostly empty public park in a Los Angeles neighborhood with a large immigrant population. | $tags: surges and operations |
| Jul 7, 2025 | DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issues notices terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Honduran and Nicaraguan nationals, with official filings the following day. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Jul 7, 2025 | The National TPS Alliance and individuals with TPS file suit against the Trump administration over the termination of TPS designations for Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua (National TPS Alliance v. Noem II, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem II, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jul 4, 2025 | Trump administration officials complete the deportation of eight men to South Sudan after a judge rules that the Supreme Court’s earlier decision allowing third-country deportations has tied his hands (D.V.D. v. DHS). | $cases: D.V.D. v. DHS $tags: third-country removals; lawsuits |
| Jul 3, 2025 | The Secretary of Defense approves the mobilization of 700 US Marines to support ICE operations in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas in response to a request from DHS. | $tags: militarization |
| Jul 2, 2025 | Federal judge Randolph D. Moss blocks the Trump administration’s southern-border asylum ban (RAICES v. Noem). | $cases: Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections |
| Jul 2, 2025 | ICE releases a six-year-old with leukemia and his family from detention following a lawsuit and a wave of public pressure (Z. v. Rodriguez). | $cases: Z. v. Rodriguez $tags: lawsuits; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Jul 2, 2025 | Three labor and immigration organizations and five people affected by ICE raids in Southern California file a class-action suit over the Trump administration’s arrest and detention practices, including ethnic profiling, denial of due process, and access to counsel (Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem). | $cases: Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; warrantless arrests |
| Jul 1, 2025 | Federal judge Brian Cogan blocks the Department of Homeland Security’s February 24 attempt to end temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian nationals by setting the TPS designation to expire six months early (Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association v. Trump). | $cases: Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jul 1, 2025 | Reports surface that major US employers including Amazon, Sam’s Club, and Walmart have begun firing Haitian workers whose immigration status is threatened. | |
| Jul 1, 2025 | Twenty US states sue the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, claiming that HHS’s release of Medicaid data to DHS was a violation of federal health privacy laws, including HIPAA (California v. HHS). | $cases: California v. HHS $tags: lawsuits; surveillance and data |
| Jun 29, 2025 | The number of people held in US immigration detention centers reaches nearly 58,000. | $tags: mass detention |
| Jun 27, 2025 | Seven civil rights and immigration advocacy groups file a class-action lawsuit challenging EO 14160, which ends birthright citizenship (Barbara v. Trump). | $cases: Barbara v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Jun 27, 2025 | The Supreme Court approves the Trump administration’s request to limit nationwide injunctions against EO 14160, which ended birthright citizenship in the United States. The decision allows the possibility of class-wide injunctions in class action lawsuits, and plaintiffs immediately file for class certification (CASA v. Trump; Washington v. Trump). | $cases: CASA v. Trump; Washington v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Jun 27, 2025 | The Trump administration announces that it is terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians in early September, arguing that it is now safe for them to return to Haiti. In the official notice of the action filed a few days later, they argue the opposite: that conditions in Haiti are so chaotic and dangerous that allowing Haitian nationals to remain here is “contrary to the U.S. national interest.” | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Jun 27, 2025 | Two conservation nonprofits sue DHS, ICE, and Florida authorities for building the Everglades immigration detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz” without environmental review (Friends of the Everglades v. Noem). | $cases: Friends of the Everglades v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; mass detention |
| Jun 26, 2025 | The US denies visas to the Cuban women’s volleyball team, barring them from an international tournament in Puerto Rico. | $tags: visa restrictions; targeting political opponents |
| Jun 25, 2025 | Residents pack a city council meeting to speak out against a plan by ICE and private prison company CoreCivic to turn a 2,500 bed prison in California City into the state’s largest immigrant detention facility. | $tags: mass detention |
| Jun 24, 2025 | A mother and two children — one a six-year-old with leukemia — sue the Trump administration after an immigration court dismissed their asylum case without hearing it. The family had been immediately arrested in the courthouse and sent to Texas for detention and expedited deportation (Z. v. Rodriguez). | $cases: Z. v. Rodriguez $tags: lawsuits; detention conditions; mass detention |
| Jun 24, 2025 | Erez Reuveni, the DOJ attorney fired after admitting that Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation was an error, files a whistleblower disclosure claiming that the Trump administration both planned to and did defy federal court orders in immigration cases through “lack of candor, deliberate delay, and disinformation.” | $tags: defying court orders |
| Jun 24, 2025 | ICE changes its policy on temporary detention of immigrants, allowing detainees to be held for as long as 72 hours in facilities intended for brief stays. | $tags: mass detention; detention conditions |
| Jun 24, 2025 | Judge Talwani orders the Trump administration to confirm that it has done everything required to resume processing immigration paperwork for the class affected by the case before her. A week later, the government complies (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Jun 24, 2025 | The Trump administration sues every federal judge in Maryland over a May court order blocking the immediate deportation of immigrants who file habeas corpus petitions in the state. | $tags: targeting judges |
| Jun 23, 2025 | The Supreme Court grants the Trump administration’s emergency request to forgo due process before “third-country removals,” which are deportations to a country to which the deported people have no connection (D.V.D. v. DHS). | $cases: D.V.D. v. DHS $tags: third-country removals; lawsuits |
| Jun 22, 2025 | Federal judge Barbara D. Holmes orders the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from prison in Tennessee while the Trump administration pursues new charges against him. But just a few days later, Abrego Garcia’s own lawyers request that he remain in federal custody for his safety, after the administration tells another judge it intends to immediately re-deport him should he be released (Abrego Garcia v. Noem, US v. Abrego Garcia). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem; US v. Abrego Garcia $tags: lawsuits |
| Jun 21, 2025 | The Senate Parliamentarian strikes several immigration enforcement provisions from Congress’s budget bill, including one defunding sanctuary cities and another making it ruinously expensive to effectively challenge Trump administration immigration policies in court. A day later the Parliamentarian also strikes a provision that would extend the power of border security and immigration enforcement to the states. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Jun 20, 2025 | Mahmoud Khalil is freed on the orders of federal judge Michael Farbiarz after 104 days in detention. The Trump administration immediately appeals the decision (Khalil v. Joyce). | $cases: Khalil v. Joyce $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Jun 20, 2025 | On World Refugee day, Bishop-elect Michael Pham of San Diego and a delegation of clergy visit immigration courts where ICE agents are waiting to detain immigrants. When they see the delegation, ICE agents leave. | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Jun 19, 2025 | An anti-ICE protest takes place at a field office in Portland, OR. Police arrest more than 20 protesters. | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Jun 19, 2025 | Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier uses his X.com account to announce a new immigration detention camp in the Everglades that he names “Alligator Alcatraz.” A few days later, the Florida Division of Emergency Management notifies Miami-Dade county that it is seizing property to build the facility. | $tags: mass detention |
| Jun 19, 2025 | ICE changes its detention-center visitation policy (PDF) again, asking members of Congress to give at least 72 hours notice for oversight visits and asserting the authority to deny, cancel, and end such visits. A DHS spokeswoman then announces that oversight visits require a full week’s notice, in contradiction of federal law. | $tags: obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| Jun 18, 2025 | California National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles during anti-ICE protests are sent 130 miles away to join a multi-agency drug raid on several cannabis farms, an expansion of the Trump administration’s domestic use of the military. | $tags: militarization |
| Jun 18, 2025 | ICE denies access to Democratic New York Representatives Dan Goldman and Jerrold Nadler when they conduct an oversight visit to detention areas in an ICE field office. | $tags: obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| Jun 18, 2025 | ICE denies entry to Danny Davis, Delia Ramirez, Jonathan Jackson, and Jesús G. “Chuy” García, four congressional Democrats from Illinois conducting an oversight visit to an ICE processing facility in Chicago’s Broadview suburb. | $tags: obstructing oversight |
| Jun 18, 2025 | The Los Angeles Press Club, two unions, and several individuals sue the Trump administration, alleging that DHS has targeted, assaulted, and seriously injured journalists and demonstrators at protests against ICE raids in Southern California (LA Press Club v. Noem). | $cases: LA Press Club v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Jun 18, 2025 | The State Department resumes issuing visas for foreign students. Applicants are required to set their social media accounts to “public” for government review. | $tags: visa restrictions |
| Jun 17, 2025 | Adrian Andrew Martinez, a 20-year-old US citizen, is arrested for alleged “conspiracy to impede a federal investigation” after he confronts ICE agents during the forceful arrest of an elderly Latino worker in a Walmart parking lot. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Jun 17, 2025 | An anti-ICE protest takes place at a California hotel where ICE agents are believed to be staying. | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Jun 17, 2025 | ICE arrests Brad Lander, New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate, when he asks them for a judicial warrant for the courthouse arrest of an immigrant. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; protests and community defense |
| Jun 15, 2025 | Volunteers at USC create a free hotline to help people with scheduled in-person immigration hearings to file motions to move their appointments online. | $tags: protests and community defense |
| Jun 14, 2025 | The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services comply with Trump administration demands to release private health data on Medicaid enrollees to the Department of Homeland Security, despite Medicaid officials’ objections about ethical and legal violations. | $tags: surveillance and data |
| Jun 12, 2025 | Federal Judge Charles Breyer orders the California National Guard returned to state control, ruling that the Trump administration violated the Constitution when it took control of state troops. An appeals court immediately stays that order and later extends the stay (Newsom v. Trump). | $cases: Newsom v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Jun 12, 2025 | Secret Service agents drag Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) out of a DHS press conference when he attempts to speak about the Los Angeles immigration raids. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Jun 11, 2025 | DHS issues new guidance that ICE agents no longer have to document their justification for warrantless arrests. | $tags: warrantless arrests |
| Jun 11, 2025 | Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) is indicted on three counts of forcibly “impeding and interfering with” ICE officers during the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka at an immigration detention facility in Newark, NJ. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Jun 11, 2025 | The Department of Justice announces that they will prioritize denaturalization via civil litigation in cases in which naturalized citizens commit certain kinds of crimes, including national security violations and fraud. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Jun 10, 2025 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals pauses Judge Boasberg’s order requiring the Trump administration to provide due process to the Venezuelan men it sent to CECOT (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Jun 9, 2025 | California Governor Gavin Newsom files a lawsuit against the Trump administration for federalizing and deploying the state’s National Guard without consulting him (Newsom v. Trump). | $cases: Newsom v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; militarization |
| Jun 9, 2025 | The Pentagon mobilizes 700 Marines and 2,000 more National Guard troops to crack down on anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. | $tags: militarization |
| Jun 8, 2025 | ICE refuses entry to Democratic New York Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velazquez when they visit an immigrant detention area inside a Manhattan federal building. | $tags: obstructing oversight; mass detention |
| Jun 7, 2025 | In response to LA’s anti-ICE protests, Trump issues a memorandum that federalizes 2,000 members of the California National Guard and authorizes the Secretary of Defense to deploy them in Los Angeles along with other active-duty armed forces. | $tags: militarization |
| Jun 6, 2025 | DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issues a notice terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Nepali nationals. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Jun 6, 2025 | Federal agents arrest union leader David Huerta, President of SEIU California and SEIU-USWW, while he is observing an immigration raid. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers; obstructing oversight |
| Jun 6, 2025 | Large scale anti-ICE protests ramp up in LA as immigration raids across Southern California intensify. | $tags: protests and community defense; surges and operations |
| Jun 6, 2025 | The Trump administration returns Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US, to a jail in Tennessee, to face brand-new charges of human trafficking (Abrego Garcia v. Noem, US v. Abrego Garcia). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem; US v. Abrego Garcia $tags: lawsuits |
| Jun 4, 2025 | Judge Boasberg orders the Trump administration to provide due process to the Venezuelan men it sent to CECOT after claiming they were members of Tren de Aragua (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Jun 4, 2025 | The Trump administration ends temporary protected status (TPS) for Cameroonian nationals living in the US. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| May 30, 2025 | After an appeals court refuses — twice — to stay Judge Talwani’s block of the Trump administration’s termination of CHNV parole, the Supreme Court stays the block in an unsigned “shadow docket” ruling, pending the appeal court’s full ruling on the merits of the case (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). (Note: The Supreme Court’s ruling stays Judge Talwani’s April 14th order but doesn’t address her May 28th order.) | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| May 30, 2025 | Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is notified that he is under investigation by Republicans on two congressional committees for his critical response to a collaborative sweep by ICE and Tennessee Highway Patrol officers in early May. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| May 28. 2025 | Judge Talwani follows up her April 14 block on the Trump administration’s termination of CHNV parole by ordering the administration to resume processing immigration paperwork for people covered by several humanitarian programs, including those for US military family members (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| May 23, 2025 | Federal judge Ana Reyes orders the Department of Homeland Security not to abolish several oversight offices, and the department confirms that it will keep them open (Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights v. DHS). | $cases: Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights v. DHS $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight |
| May 21, 2025 | Kilmar Abrego Garcia (still in prison in El Salvador) is indicted for alleged human trafficking based on a 2022 traffic stop that led to no charges. A high-ranking DOJ prosecutor in Nashville abruptly resigns in protest (Abrego Garcia v. Noem; US v. Abrego Garcia). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem; US v. Abrego Garcia $tags: lawsuits |
| May 21, 2025 | White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller demands a quota of 3,000 immigration arrests per day, doubling the quotas announced in February 2025. | $tags: mass detention; warrantless arrests |
| May 20, 2025 | The Department of Justice drops charges against Mayor Ras Baraka over his participation in a congressional oversight visit to an ICE detention facility. They instead file charges against Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), a member of the delegation, for allegedly assaulting ICE officers during Baraka’s arrest. | $tags: obstructing oversight; targeting protesters and observers; detention conditions |
| May 19, 2025 | In an unsigned “shadow docket” ruling, the Supreme Court lets the Trump administration end temporary protected status (TPS) for Venezuelan nationals while a legal challenge proceeds (National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| May 12, 2025 | ICE issues an internal memo informing agents that they may forcibly enter people’s homes using administrative warrants signed by ICE officials. The memo remains confidential until disclosed by whistleblowers in January 2026 and violates longstanding precedent and policy requiring a warrant signed by a judge to enter private premises for the purpose of search or arrest. | $tags: warrantless arrests; obstructing oversight |
| May 9, 2025 | After more than six weeks in immigration detention, Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk is freed (Öztürk v. Hyde). | $cases: Öztürk v. Hyde $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| May 9, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security arrests Newark Mayor Ras Baraka during an official oversight visit to a new ICE detention facility and charges him with trespassing. During the chaotic arrest, the congressional delegation is caught up in a scuffle with ICE agents. | $tags: obstructing oversight; targeting protesters and observers; detention conditions |
| May 7, 2025 | The Trump administration invokes state secrets privilege in response to Judge Xinis’s and the plaintiffs’ multiple attempts to obtain information about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s condition and location (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight |
| May 6, 2025 | Fourteen news organizations file a motion to intervene in Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case, asking for the release of court records in the name of “maximum transparency” (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits |
| May 4, 2025 | Federal agents and Tennessee State Police begin “Operation Flood the Zone,” a six-night effort in which state troopers racially profile and stop drivers in Nashville’s immigrant neighborhoods for offenses like “bent license plates,” so that ICE (which lacks authority to make traffic stops) can arrest people they deem appropriate targets for detention and deportation. Comprehensive coverage of the operation, which leads to 600 stops and more than 150 arrests, doesn’t emerge until November 2025 and February 2026. | $tags: warrantless arrests; surges and operations; mass detention |
| Apr 30, 2025 | Mohsen Mahdawi is released from ICE custody on bail while his habeas corpus case proceeds (Mahdawi v. Trump). | $cases: Mahdawi v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Apr 28, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14287: “Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens,” which directs various executive departments and agencies to publish a list of sanctuary cities and identify ways to cut these cities off from federal funding. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Apr 25, 2025 | FBI agents arrest Wisconsin circuit court judge Hannah Dugan and charge her with two felony counts — obstruction and concealing an individual — which allege that she escorted a defendant in her courtroom away from ICE agents waiting to detain him. | $tags: targeting judges |
| Apr 24, 2025 | Federal judge William Orrick blocks the withholding of federal funding from sanctuary cities under EO 14159 (San Francisco v. Trump). | $cases: San Francisco v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers |
| Apr 24, 2025 | Three nonprofit civil rights organizations file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security challenging the closure of key DHS oversight offices (Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights v. DHS). | $cases: Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights v. DHS $tags: lawsuits; obstructing oversight |
| Apr 22, 2025 | Legal aid organizations report that the Trump administration is defying Judge Martínez-Olguin’s April 1 court order to restore legal aid to immigrant children (Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto v. HHS). | $cases: Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto v. HHS $tags: lawsuits; defying court orders |
| Apr 22, 2025 | The Trump administration fires 8 more immigration judges. | $tags: targeting judges; sabotaging immigration courts |
| Apr 18, 2025 | The Executive Office for Immigration Review issues a memo against administrative closure of immigration cases. Administrative closure has been used for decades to pause removal proceedings while immigrants seek green cards, asylum, or other deportation relief and then resume them when those (frequently lengthy) processes have completed. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Apr 18, 2025 | While refusing to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US despite a federal court order, the Trump administration intensifies its efforts to portray him as a dangerous criminal by publicizing past accusations — none of which had led to charges. | $tags: detention conditions; warrantless arrests; third-country removals |
| Apr 17, 2025 | Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. He confirms that Abrego Garcia has been released from CECOT and was transferred to another detention facility in El Salvador on April 10 (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Apr 14, 2025 | Federal judge Indira Talwani temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s termination of humanitarian parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV parole) (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). (Note: The judge announces the stay three days earlier, leading to media coverage dated April 10, but her order is filed on April 14.) | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Apr 14, 2025 | Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who was born in a West Bank refugee camp and led pro-Palestinian student protests, is arrested and detained by ICE at his own naturalization interview. His attorneys immediately file a habeas corpus petition, and a federal court orders (PDF) that he not be deported or moved from Vermont while his case proceeds (Mahdawi v. Trump). | $cases: Mahdawi v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Apr 14, 2025 | Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, tells reporters that he will not return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. The Trump administration also retracts its previous admission that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error.” | $tags: detention conditions; warrantless arrests; third-country removals |
| Apr 11, 2025 | Louisiana immigration court judge Jamee Comans rules that Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, can be deported. According to Khalil’s lawyers, the judge relied on a two-page State Department memo stating that Khalil’s lawful pro-Palestinian advocacy makes his presence in the US harmful to US foreign policy (Khalil v. Joyce). | $cases: Khalil v. Joyce $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Apr 11, 2025 | The Trump administration orders immigration judges to dismiss asylum claims without hearings if the claims appear to be “legally deficient” based solely on applicants’ asylum request forms; the order makes it easier to deport asylum applicants who lack legal representation. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Apr 10, 2025 | The Supreme Court upholds the lower court order requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the US. The administration refuses, claiming that his release is up to El Salvador and beyond both the power and the obligations of the US government (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals |
| Apr 7, 2025 | The Supreme Court overrules lower court decisions and allows the Trump administration to continue deporting Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act as long as the government provides minimal due process. The ruling also states that challenges to the deportations should have been made as habeas corpus petitions for each plaintiff in the jurisdiction where they are detained (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions; due process/habeas |
| Apr 7, 2025 | The Trump administration files an emergency appeal arguing that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a member of the “terrorist group” MS-13 and that a court cannot issue orders to the president on matters of foreign diplomacy. Later the same day, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issues a temporary administrative stay lifting the April 7 deadline for Abrego Garcia’s return (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits |
| Apr 4, 2025 | Federal judge Paula Xinis orders the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the US by midnight on April 7 (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals |
| Apr 1, 2025 | Federal judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín orders the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to the children whose support was defunded on March 21 (Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto v. HHS). | $cases: Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto v. HHS $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas |
| Mar 31, 2025 | Erez Reuveni, a Trump administration attorney, admits in a federal court filing (PDF) that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador “because of an administrative error” (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals |
| Mar 31, 2025 | Federal judge Edward Chen blocks the Trump administration’s attempt to remove temporary protected status (TPS) from Venezuelans while the case proceeds (National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Mar 26, 2025 | The DC Circuit Court of Appeals denies the Trump administration’s appeal of Judge Boasberg’s restraining order against the deportations of alleged members of Venezuelan gangs under the Alien Enemies Act (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Mar 25, 2025 | Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish-born PhD student who co-wrote an op-ed criticizing her school’s response to the genocide in Gaza, is arrested on the street and detained by masked, non-uniformed ICE agents after her visa is revoked without notice. Federal judge Indira Talwani issues an emergency order saying Öztürk may not be removed from Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice, but ICE immediately transfers her out of state, eventually to a detention center in Louisiana (Öztürk v. Hyde). | $cases: Öztürk v. Hyde $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Mar 25, 2025 | The American Association of University Professors, the Knight First Amendment Center at Columbia University, and several other academic groups file suit against the Trump administration’s alleged targeting of noncitizen students and professors for detention and deportation over their constitutionally protected political speech (American Association of University Professors v. Rubio). | $cases: American Association of University Professors v. Rubio $tags: lawsuits; targeting political opponents |
| Mar 25, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security files notice that it is terminating the humanitarian parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, revoking the lawful immigration status of people on CHNV parole as of April 24, 2025. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Mar 24, 2025 | Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s family files a lawsuit arguing that his arrest and deportation violated his due process rights, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Withholding of Removal Statute (Abrego Garcia v. Noem). | $cases: Abrego Garcia v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas |
| Mar 24, 2025 | Three immigrant advocacy organizations file suit against the Trump administration’s policy of rapidly deporting immigrants who entered the country lawfully through humanitarian parole programs (CHIRLA v. Noem). | $cases: Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections; rapid deportation |
| Mar 21, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) closes three oversight and assistance offices: the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. These services are congressionally mandated and required by statute to register civil rights violations in the immigration system and to assist immigrants and employers with paperwork problems. | $tags: obstructing oversight |
| March 21, 2025 | Trump defunds a legal aid program that ensures that 26,000 unaccompanied immigrant children, including babies under the age of one, are not forced to represent themselves in immigration courts. | $tags: due process/habeas |
| Mar 15, 2025 | Despite Judge Boasberg’s restraining order, the Trump administration begins mass deportations to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT megaprison based on the administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions; due process/habeas |
| Mar 15, 2025 | Early on March 15, five Venezuelan nationals in immigration detention file a legal challenge against the Trump administration’s planned deportations of alleged members of Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act. That same day, federal judge James Boasberg issues a bench ruling and a written temporary restraining order blocking the deportations and ordering deportation flights to return (J.G.G. v. Trump). | $cases: J.G.G. v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Mar 15, 2025 | ICE agents assisting South Padre Island, TX, police with traffic control after a car crash stop a vehicle carrying two US citizens and shoot through the window, killing driver Ruben Ray Martinez. ICE’s internal report claims that Martinez failed to obey instructions and struck an officer; the passenger states that the ICE agent moved in front of the car while Martinez was trying to obey and then shot him without warning. ICE fails to report the killing, and it does not come to light until February 2026. | $tags: deaths |
| Mar 15, 2025 | Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran-born Maryland man arrested for alleged gang membership, is deported in the first group of CECOT renditions. Abrego Garcia has protected legal status specifically prohibiting him from being deported to El Salvador, but he is sent there anyway. | $tags: detention conditions; warrantless arrests; third-country removals |
| Mar 14, 2025 | A Haitian clergy association joins with a group of Haitians with temporary protected status (TPS) and a labor organization to sue the Trump administration, claiming that ending Haiti’s TPS designation is unlawful (Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association v. Trump). | $cases: Haitian Evangelical Clergy Association v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Mar 14, 2025 | According to a whistleblower disclosure by a former DOJ attorney, top Department of Justice official Emil Bove tells Office of Immigration Litigation lawyers that they need to consider ignoring court orders (“telling the courts ‘fuck you’”) to ensure that ICE deportation flights proceed despite blocks from federal judges. | $tags: defying court orders |
| Mar 14, 2025 | Reports surface that US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has canceled translation service for calls to the Department of Homeland Security and instructed workers to hang up on callers speaking languages in which they’re not fluent. | |
| Mar 14, 2025 | Trump signs Proclamation 13033: “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren de Aragua,” allowing expedited deportation of any Venezuelan national age 14 or older who is alleged to be a member of the Tren de Aragua gang (newly designated as a “terrorist organization”). | $tags: detention conditions; warrantless arrests; third-country removals; rapid deportation |
| Mar 12, 2025 | An ICE official states that the US immigration detention system is filled to capacity, with 47,600 people in detention. | $tags: mass detention |
| Mar 12, 2025 | ICE arrests Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador–born man living in Maryland, and detains him without charges, citing old allegations of MS-13 gang involvement that came from a detective later suspended for misconduct and placed on a do-not-call list for “unreliable” officers. | $tags: warrantless arrests |
| Mar 10, 2025 | Federal judge Jesse Furman rules that Mahmoud Khalil cannot be deported or detained while his case proceeds (Khalil v. Joyce). | $cases: Khalil v. Joyce $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Mar 9, 2025 | Mahmoud Khalil’s counsel files a habeas corpus petition claiming that his arrest and detention violate the Due Process Clause and the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Hours after his petition is filed, ICE transfers Khalil from New York to Louisiana (Khalil v. Joyce). | $cases: Khalil v. Joyce $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Mar 8, 2025 | Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born lawful permanent resident, is arrested without a warrant by ICE officers and detained pending deportation. ICE claims that his student visa has been revoked without notice; when told Khalil is a green card holder married to a US citizen, they claim his green card has also been revoked. | $cases: Khalil v. Joyce $tags: lawsuits; due process/habeas; targeting political opponents |
| Mar 6, 2025 | Immigration advocates report mass layoffs of federal workers focused on immigration services, justice, and benefits, including US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees, State Department workers who process visas, and immigration judges. | $tags: targeting judges; sabotaging immigration courts |
| March 1, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14224: “Designating English as the Official Language of the United States,” which revokes Bill Clinton’s EO 13166: “Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency,” signed August 11, 2000. | |
| Feb 28, 2025 | The Haitian Bridge Alliance and 11 individuals file suit against the Trump administration’s termination of humanitarian parole for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV parole) and immigration pathways for people from Afghanistan (Operation Allies Welcome) and Ukraine (Uniting for Ukraine/U4U) (Svitlana Doe v. Noem). | $cases: Svitlana Doe v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Feb 24, 2025 | DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issues a notice setting the temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian nationals living in the US to expire six months early. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Feb 19, 2025 | The National TPS Alliance and several Venezuelan nationals with temporary protected status (TPS) file suit against the Trump administration. They argue that termination of their TPS violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and is motivated by racism (National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela). | $cases: National TPS Alliance v. Noem I, Haiti and Venezuela $tags: lawsuits; revoking legal status |
| Feb 19, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14218: “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,” which directs the government to “ensure…that no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens” (a group that includes many lawfully present immigrants) by targeting currently funded programs, tightening eligibility verifications, and attacking sanctuary policies. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Feb 18, 2025 | The Trump administration removes all nine Biden-appointed immigration judges on the Board of Immigration Appeals and reduces the board’s size from 28 to 15 permanent members, though these cuts are not officially confirmed until April. | $tags: targeting judges; sabotaging immigration courts |
| Feb 17, 2025 | A taxpayer advocacy organization, a small business coalition, and two labor unions file an emergency federal lawsuit in an attempt to prevent DOGE from accessing private taxpayer data from the IRS. The suit includes immigrants in its list of groups potentially harmed by over-broad data sharing (Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS). | $cases: Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS $tags: lawsuits; surveillance and data |
| Feb 14, 2025 | The Trump administration fires 20 immigration judges without stated cause, despite a current 3.7-million-case backlog in immigration courts that has led to years-long waits for hearings. | $tags: targeting judges; sabotaging immigration courts |
| Feb 14, 2025 | US Citizenship and Immigration Services issues an “administrative pause” on all paperwork processing related to the Uniting for Ukraine program (U4U), the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans parole program (CHNV parole), and the Family Reunification Parole program (FRP). | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Feb 7, 2025 | Cities and counties in multiple states challenge EO 14159 and a related Department of Justice memo that would withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities (San Francisco v. Trump). | $cases: San Francisco v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; targeting protesters and observers |
| Feb 7, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14204: “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa,” which directs the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security to prioritize refugee admission and resettlement for white Afrikaners from South Africa. | |
| Feb 6, 2025 | Judge Coughenour follows his initial temporary order with a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship (Washington v. Trump). | $cases: Washington v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Feb 5, 2025 | Federal judge Deborah L. Boardman issues a preliminary nationwide injunction that blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order (CASA v. Trump). | $cases: CASA v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Feb 4, 2025 | US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) starts defunding multiple organizations that serve immigrants. | $tags: targeting protesters and observers |
| Feb 3, 2025 | Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele announce that El Salvador will incarcerate “convicted criminals” deported from the US, potentially including US citizens, in El Salvador’s notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison. | $tags: third-country removals; detention conditions |
| Feb 3. 2025 | Three nonprofits that serve refugees and immigrants file suit against the Trump administration for its termination of the asylum system, alleging that this action violates four congressional acts and the separation of powers (RAICES v. Noem). | $cases: Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; asylum and refugee protections |
| Feb 2, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security issues a notice retracting a Biden-administration extension of two temporary protected status (TPS) designations for Venezuelan nationals in the US. This is followed a few days later by a notice fully terminating TPS for Venezuelan nationals affected by one TPS designation as of April 7; barring further changes, the other designation will expire on September 10. | $tags: revoking legal status |
| Feb 1, 2025 | Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issues a memorandum requiring 24-hour advance notice of oversight visits by congressional staff. (Note: The memo is dated “February” and the precise date of issue is unknown.) | $tags: obstructing oversight |
| Jan 29, 2025 | Trump issues a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense titled “Expanding Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to Full Capacity,” nearly doubling the nationwide immigration detention capacity. | $tags: mass detention |
| Jan 25, 2025 | Trump officials issue a quota for immigration-related enforcement, instructing ICE to arrest at least 1,200 people every day. | $tags: warrantless arrests; mass detention |
| Jan 23, 2025 | Federal judge John Coughenour pauses the Trump administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship (PDF) (Washington v. Trump). | $cases: Washington v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Jan 22, 2025 | Make the Road, an immigrant-led advocacy organization, challenges the “expedited removal” of immigrants arrested in the interior of the US using rapid methods previously reserved for apprehensions at or near the border (Make the Road New York v. Noem). | $cases: Make the Road New York v. Noem $tags: lawsuits; rapid deportation |
| Jan 21, 2025 | Four states file a lawsuit against EO 14160, which attempts to end birthright citizenship (Washington v. Trump). | $cases: Washington v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Jan 21, 2025 | ICE rescinds Biden-era guidance that had kept immigration enforcement out of courthouses to ensure “access to justice, safety for crime victims, and equal protection under the law.” This effectively allows ICE to stake out courthouses to arrest “targeted individuals” and their family and friends. | |
| Jan 21, 2025 | Two advocacy organizations and a group of pregnant women whose children would be affected by the termination of birthright citizenship file suit against the Trump administration over EO 14160 (CASA v. Trump). | $cases: CASA v. Trump $tags: lawsuits; birthright citizenship |
| Jan 20, 2025 | On Inauguration Day, the Trump administration fires the acting head of the US immigration court system and the chief immigration judge, along with the policy head and general counsel for the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. | $tags: targeting judges; sabotaging immigration courts |
| Jan 20, 2025 | President Trump signs EO 14157: “Designating Cartels and Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” which redefines “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” and “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” to include specific cartels and gangs. This is the first step in allowing the Department of Homeland Security to use existing anti-terrorism laws to deport people suspected of gang membership without due process. | |
| Jan 20, 2025 | The Department of Homeland Security issues a directive permitting immigration enforcement to arrest people in sensitive locations such as hospitals, schools, and churches, removing decade-old protections against such intrusions. | |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14159: “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which reduces access to due process for immigrants, brings “expedited removal” tactics previously practiced at US borders to the whole country, imposes registration requirements that are impossible for undocumented people to meet, further restricts work permits, and threatens federal funding to sanctuary cities and immigrant assistance organizations. | $tags: due process/habeas; targeting protesters and observers |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14160: “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which declares an end to birthright citizenship. | $tags: birthright citizenship |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14161: “Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” which directs multiple agencies to plan a broad travel ban and to intensify security and ideological screening of all foreign nationals. | $tags: ideological screening; visa restrictions |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14163: “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” which ends existing refugee admission processes. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14165: "Securing Our Borders,” which terminates humanitarian immigration pathways, criminalizes violations of (civil) immigration law, requires detention of all noncitizens suspected of breaking laws, directs Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) actions against sanctuary jurisdictions, and increases immigration enforcement staffing. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections; mass detention; targeting political opponents |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs EO 14167: “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States,” directing the Department of Defense to develop plans to use federal troops domestically for border security. | $tags: militarization |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs Proclamation 10886: “Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States,” invoking presidential powers to fund the border wall without Congressional authorization and calling for military deployment at the border. | $tags: militarization |
| Jan 20, 2025 | Trump signs Proclamation 10888: “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” which classifies migration as invasion, “closes” the southern border, invokes the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and suspends US laws allowing immigrants to seek asylum. | $tags: asylum and refugee protections |
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