U.S. Immigration, Citizenship & Homeland Security January 2026-

U.S. Immigration, Citizenship & National Security March 2025-January 2026

10-14 July
ICE halts most traffic stops, moves to expand body cameras after fatal shootings
The moves follow deadly encounters involving ICE agents in Maine and Houston.
(CNN) Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been directed to halt most traffic stops after an ICE officer fatally shot a man in Biddeford, Maine, yesterday — marking a striking reversal in tactics days after a federal agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant during a traffic stop in Houston. ICE is also planning to equip each arrest team with an agent wearing a body camera, a spokesperson said.
Border czar Tom Homan characterized the halting of most ICE traffic stops as a “short pause” rather than a larger policy change by the Trump administration. Homan also downplayed the significance of traffic stops and argued the move would not have a great impact on the number of ICE arrests.
Killed in Maine was 26-year-old father Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero, from Colombia, a neighbor said. He was authorized to work in the US and was issued a Social Security number, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition said. He wasn’t the target of the immigration operation, Sen. Angus King said.
ICE Killing in Houston Puts Focus on Surge in Immigration Arrests
(NYT) The shooting death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo occurred as immigration enforcement has ramped up across the country, with thousands being arrested daily.
Migrants who saw man killed by ICE in Houston say he did not ram officers
Three men who were in the vehicle alongside Lorenzo Salgado Araujo are contesting the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the fatal shooting
(WaPo) The three men who were arrested during an immigration operation that resulted in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo said a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle and that at no point did the driver veer in his direction.
The migrants are disputing key elements of the Department of Homeland Security’s account of what transpired during a chaotic traffic stop in a predominantly Mexican American neighborhood in Houston on Tuesday. They spoke from immigration detention with attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, who shared their written and oral accounts with The Washington Post.

9 July
1 year in, ICE’s mass detention policy is on the ropes
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s mass detention policy has been in place — and under fire in the courts — for a year.
(Politico) Federal judges have spent a full year overwhelmingly rejecting ICE’s effort to lock up people the Trump administration is seeking to deport — finding a combination of illegality, unconstitutionality, incompetence and cruelty at a shocking scale.
More than 15,000 times.
That staggering statistic has been fueled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s adoption of an unprecedented mass detention policy a year ago. In a July 8, 2025, memo, the agency said agents would detain, without bond, tens of thousands of people with deep roots in the U.S. and overwhelmingly without criminal records. It’s a group that, until last year, would have at least been afforded bond hearings before facing indefinite detention.
POLITICO has tracked and analyzed the flood of litigation ICE detentions produced over the past year. The Trump administration has now been shot down by at least 464 federal judges, with just 54 — overwhelmingly appointed by Trump — ruling in the administration’s favor.
However, even a majority of Trump-appointed judges who have considered the policy ultimately rejected it. In recent weeks, the legal rout has extended to the appeals courts, typically a haven of support for Trump’s policies. The Trump administration is now putting its final hopes in the Supreme Court.
At the heart is ICE’s novel reading of 30-year-old immigration laws that every prior administration understood to apply only to people who had recently crossed the border illegally. That 1996 law required ICE to detain those border-crossers for the duration of their typically expedited deportation proceedings.

7 July
Homeland Security buys two of California’s largest immigration detention centers
… CoreCivic sold its Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County and its California City Detention Facility in Kern County in a deal that closed July 2nd.
The company reported the news in a letter to its investors on Monday that also confirmed CoreCivic is set to rake in around $1.2 billion from the deal.
Up until now, the company owned and operated the facilities on a contract with the federal government.
An unsigned Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo says the new model would “allow ICE to create an efficient detention network by reducing the total number of contracted detention facilities in use.”
ICE Barbie’s Fresh DHS Embarrassment Exposed
(Daily Beast) The new Homeland Security secretary wants any lingering footage of Kristi Noem scrubbed from America’s airports.
Noem, 54, fronted Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive until March 5, when criticism from both sides of the aisle prompted the president to fire her. Mullin, 48, an ex-senator from Oklahoma, was sworn in on March 25, and he has spent the months since dismantling her legacy.

6 July
Who belongs?: The global battle over citizenship
The US Supreme Court birthright citizenship decision is not an isolated legal event. Increasingly, around the globe, countries are struggling to redefine who belongs within their borders, from anti-immigrant protests in South Africa to Spain’s decision to regularize large numbers of undocumented migrants.
The US Supreme Court upheld the tradition of birthright citizenship in the country in a vote of 6-3. This decision reaffirmed the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to virtually all persons born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
The United States is not the only country to wrestle with the issue of who gets citizenship and on what basis. That’s currently a flashpoint across the globe.
François Crépeau,  [McGill] professor emeritus of public international law , speaks with The World’s Host Marco Werman about the political dynamics behind the different approaches.
“It’s 194 pages. They did the whole history of the birthright citizenship mechanism, starting with the English common law that was inherited by the US, as well as by Canada. And they come to the 14th Amendment and explain how the 14th Amendment has been interpreted. How in the ’80s, there was a movement to restrict its interpretation, and that’s what the Court rejected, saying that everyone who is on the territory is under the jurisdiction of the US, and therefore people who are born in the US therefore have birthright citizenship.”

1-4 July
ICE arrests 10,000 people across US in 5-day span, a sharp surge in Trump’s deportation push
The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue to surge.
Immigrant Arrests Surge to 10,000 in 5 Days as ICE Clamps Down
The agency has doubled its daily arrest numbers without the fanfare of last year’s large urban operations, sowing fear in immigrant communities.
(NYT) Federal immigration officials have detained more than 10,000 people in the last five days, a major surge that has stemmed from a push within Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase arrest rates.
Agency leaders in recent days ordered top ICE officials to focus more of their officers’ efforts on picking up immigrants they want to deport, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with federal officials. ICE officers have arrested people at check-ins with immigration authorities, during traffic stops and on the street. The push has apparently yielded results, with recent arrest numbers roughly doubling from the 1,000 picked up each day earlier this year.
ICE officials were told that the White House wanted an increase in arrests, according to three officials with knowledge of the conversations. One of the officials said that it was unclear how long the pace could continue, but that ICE officials had been told that 2,000 arrests a day was the new standard for enforcement.

29-30 June
Supreme Court rejects Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship
Josh Gerstein
The justices ruled that the Constitution guarantees U.S. citizenship to virtually everyone born on American soil.
(Politico) The court’s ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, invalidates an executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term seeking to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants and of people studying, working or visiting the U.S. on time-limited visas.
Five justices — Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberals — agreed that the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship. Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed with that conclusion but said Trump’s executive order is invalid because it violates a federal statute.

2 June
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, pressed at a Senate hearing, refused to commit to following federal court orders.
Mullin conceded that former Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem falsely portrayed two shootings in Minnesota by immigration officers.
The clash unfolded as senators weighed Homeland Security funding and immigration enforcement ahead of the World Cup, amid threats to pull airport officers and mounting detention protests.

30 May – 1 June
Green Card Update: DHS Says ‘Return Home’ Order Won’t Apply To All
(Newsweek) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has clarified a controversial immigration policy issued last week, saying most green card applicants will not be required to leave the United States while their cases are processed.
Officials said guidance announced in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) news release—which suggested applicants would have to return to their home countries except in “extraordinary” cases—was not a sweeping policy shift. Instead, DHS now says the decision will remain discretionary, assessed case by case by immigration officers.

14 March
Critical swing state candidates reveal where they stand on DHS funding after suspected terror attacks
(Fox news) Senate Democrats have voted 4 times in the past month to block DHS funding over opposition to ICE
Senate Democrats have voted four times over the past month to block Homeland Security funding because the bills include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Democrats say reforms are needed at those two DHS agencies following the fatal shootings earlier this year by federal immigration agents of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota who were protesting the Trump administration’s unprecedented illegal immigration crackdown.

5 March
Kristi Noem, who oversaw ICE operations, moved to new ‘special envoy’ role
Trump made the announcement two days after Noem faced a grilling on Capitol Hill from GOP members as well as Democrats.
Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term. Her departure caps a tumultuous tenure overseeing immigration enforcement tactics that have been met with protests and lawsuits.
Noem has faced waves of criticism as she’s overseen Trump’s immigration crackdown, especially since the shooting deaths of two protesters — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement officers. The former South Dakota governor was also criticized over the way her department has spent billions of dollars allocated to it by Congress.

13 February
The Government Is Set to Partially Shut Down, Again
(NYT evening newsletter) Funding for much of the Department of Homeland Security will very likely lapse just after midnight tonight. In fact, many lawmakers have already left Washington, apparently accepting that Democrats and Republicans will not soon compromise.
The blasé attitude in the Capitol is a significant change in tone from past shutdowns, but it reflects the conviction of both parties that they are in the stronger political position.
Democrats have insisted that the federal government place meaningful new limits on immigration officers — including an end to wearing masks — before they vote to fund D.H.S. They point to polls that show broad disapproval of ICE’s tactics, and some of their voters are demanding that they not back down.
Republicans have roundly rejected many of their demands. They argue that voters support President Trump’s broader immigration plans, and that the White House’s plan to end its Minneapolis surge shows that the president is being responsive.
5 February
Senators Clash Over Immigration Enforcement, Risking a D.H.S. Shutdown
With eight days until a deadline to keep the Department of Homeland Security running, bipartisan talks on reining in federal immigration agents’ tactics appeared to sputter before they had even gotten underway.
(NYT) Senators left Washington for the weekend without opening serious talks on a measure needed to keep the department running past a Feb. 13 midnight deadline, with Democrats demanding major changes to immigration enforcement operations and Republicans digging in against measures to curb the Trump administration’s deportation drive.
Homeland Security shutdown grows more likely as Republicans rebuff Democrats’ ICE demands
(AP) — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that demands made by Democrats for new restrictions on federal immigration officers are “unrealistic” and warned that the Department of Homeland Security will shut down next week if they do not work with Republicans and the White House.
Democrats say they will not vote for a DHS spending bill when funding runs out unless there are “dramatic changes” at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement agencies in the wake of the fatal shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis last month.
The Democratic leaders, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, released an expanded list of 10 detailed proposals on Wednesday night for restraining President Donald Trump’s aggressive campaign of immigration enforcement. Among the demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use of force standards and a stop to racial profiling.

4 February
LEADERS JEFFRIES AND SCHUMER DELIVER URGENT ICE REFORM DEMANDS TO REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
(Press Release) Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sent the following letter to Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson laying out clear legislative actions to rein in ICE and stop the violence.

4 February
Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan Holds Press Conference in Minneapolis
Tom Homan announced a drawdown in Minneapolis of 700 immigration enforcement officers, effective immediately. This leaves approximately 2,000 officers.

Trump’s occupation of Minneapolis has broken the Justice Department
This DOJ is no longer capable of doing its job.
(Vox) It’s not a mystery why Trump’s government is unable to comply with court orders, or even respond to judges threatening contempt. As Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge in Minnesota’s federal district court, explained in a January 26 order, the Trump administration “decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.”
Trump, in other words, deployed thousands of armed law enforcement officers to harass and arrest people in Minneapolis, without sending enough lawyers to handle all of the federal court cases that would inevitably result from Trump’s occupation of Minnesota. So, when a judge issues an order commanding the government to release a detainee or to take some other action, there’s often no lawyer available to respond to that order.
… In a January 28 order, Schiltz listed “96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases.”
Trump, in other words, appears to have broken the Department of Justice. It simply does not have the personnel it needs to respond to all of the legal violations committed by ICE in Minneapolis. And it is likely that this problem is going to get much worse. …the US Attorney’s Office in Minnesota has hemorrhaged lawyers since the occupation of Minneapolis began. Six lawyers, including the office’s No. 2 attorney, resigned in protest last month after senior DOJ officials pushed them to open a criminal investigation into the widow of Renee Good, who was killed by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross. Eight more attorneys have since either left the office or plan to leave, according to the Associated Press.
The Trump administration is making things worse by misreading federal law
Another reason why DOJ lawyers are stretched so thin is that the Trump administration is detaining many immigrants without a legal basis to do so.
3 February
DOJ Orders Emergency Surge Prosecutors From All US Attorneys
(Bloomberg) The Justice Department is requiring all US attorneys to rapidly assign prosecutors for “emergency jump teams” supporting districts handling alleged assaults or obstruction of law enforcement, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg Law.
A senior official instructed leaders of the nation’s 93 US attorney’s offices Feb. 2 that they have until Feb. 6 to designate one or two assistant US attorneys who’d be available for short-term surges in unspecified areas needing “urgent assistance due to emergent or critical situations.” The memo coincides with media reports this week of a new round of mass resignations of federal prosecutors in Minneapolis.

2 February
Minneapolis is showing a new kind of anti-Trump resistance
Is this what democracy looks like?
by Christian Paz
(Vox) Key takeaways
The kind of anti-ICE, anti-Trump protesting, organizing, and activism that Minneapolis residents have undertaken has been hard to name.
That’s partly because it’s a different kind of resistance than we’ve tended to see in the US.
Minneapolis is offering a new model of resistance in Trump 2.0 — and teaching lessons in democracy.

29 January
Democrats, White House strike spending deal that would avert government shutdown
(AP) — Democrats and the White House struck a deal to avert a partial government shutdown and temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security as they consider new restrictions for President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement. But passage was delayed late Thursday as leaders scrambled to win enough support for the agreement before the midnight Friday deadline.
As the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, the White House agreed to separate homeland security funding from a larger spending bill and fund the department for two weeks while they debate Democratic demands for curbs on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

15 January
Framing the killing of Renee Nicole Good
The ICE-involved shooting death of Renee Nicole Good on January 7 death in Minneapolis was captured in multiple videos,
Within minutes of her death in Minneapolis, efforts began to shape how audiences interpreted the available evidence.
By Kate Starbird, Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington
One of the superficially surprising things about the aftermath of Renee Nicole Good’s killing by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minnesota is how the two political sides are seemingly viewing the very same evidence in very different ways.
For those on the left, this looks like cold-blooded murder by an easily-provoked, heavily-armed, masked, federal agent who was part of a violent, unjust, and ongoing attack on immigrants, a willing participant in an unwelcome invasion by the federal government into a Midwest community.
For (many of) those on the right, the Minneapolis resident was at fault for her own murder. She is seen to have put herself into harm’s way, antagonized officers who were merely going about their jobs, and either she was trying to run over the officer — though that’s harder to believe — or the officer was justified in thinking that he may have been in danger.
So what’s going on here? How can an event that was so visible, captured in close-up detail through videos from multiple phones, lead to two vastly different conceptions of the “truth”? And what does that have to do with mis- and disinformation?
You see, it’s not about the facts, but the frames.