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

PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS
AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS

Who is on the frontline of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the biggest cog in the machine and ICE has become an internationally recognized acronym, a growing force and Trump’s most visible anti-immigration operator. Border patrol is increasingly involved in the crackdown and a variety of other federal agencies have also been drafted into the efforts. The bewildering array of labels, tactical gear and clothing accessories begs scrutiny, even though it is sometimes not possible to identify which agency an individual works for.
When the Trump administration ordered a surge of armed federal immigration enforcement personnel on to the streets of Minneapolis, the Department of Homeland Security declared it the largest operation in its history and the liberal midwestern city became Donald Trump’s latest chosen hotspot.
Such escalations mark the US president’s agenda of mass arrests and deportations from the US interior. The highest-profile efforts involve officers from multiple agencies rushing to prominent Democratic-led US cities, against local leaders’ wishes. But coast to coast, federal officers have been raiding homes, businesses, commercial parking lots – even schools, hospitals and courthouses.

ICE’s impunity is a formula for more violence
Is America’s president building his own paramilitary militia
(The Economist) Public opinion has turned against ICE, the catch-all brand for America’s deportation machine. Even some conservatives have doubts. And Donald Trump grasped that immigration, once one of his strongest issues, has become a liability. On January 26th the president sought to ease tensions, including by putting the operation in Minneapolis under new management.
And yet the stand-off between ICE and local people continues. Mr Trump has not renounced his power to impose a paramilitary force on unwilling states. Americans should be on their guard.
ICE has a reason to be in America’s cities. Mr Trump has a mandate to deport illegal immigrants. Having dramatically curbed illicit flows across the southern border, he claims to be seeking “the worst of the worst”. But that is not what his enforcers are doing. Recently, only 5% of those detained have been people convicted of violent crimes. Instead ICE’s brutal means indicate ends that are darker than immigration-control, for several reasons.
One is that the administration appears to believe ICE should be a law unto itself. In their zeal to fill quotas and live out their macho “destroy the flood” culture, ICE agents have revelled in the wanton use of force. Administration officials have nonetheless told agents that they enjoy “absolute immunity” as they go about their duties and, a judge complains, have defied court orders.

The corporate enablers of the ICE crackdown
How Amazon, AT&T, and Citizens Bank are profiting from the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
(Popular Information) … Although Melania will almost certainly lose tens of millions of dollars for Amazon, it is a small price to pay to stay in the good graces of President Donald Trump and his administration. Amazon has billions in government contracts and provides much of the technological backbone for ICE’s surveillance and deportation activities.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosts the database, known as Investigative Case Management (ICM), that ICE uses to target and deport immigrants. ICM, which was created by Palantir, “integrates a vast ecosystem of public and private data to track down immigrants and, in many cases, deport them.” The data includes “a person’s immigration history, family relationships, personal connections, addresses, phone records, biometric traits, and other information.” Through Palantir, AWS receives millions of dollars annually from the federal government to host ICM.
Last April, the Trump administration awarded Palantir a new $30 million contract to create “ImmigrationOS,” which is “a new tool to provide [ICE] with enhanced capabilities to support deportation efforts.” ImmigrationOS is likely hosted on AWS, which has a strategic partnership with Palantir..

28 January
Attack on Ilhan Omar Follows Years of Trump’s Targeting Her
President Trump has spent years demonizing and dehumanizing the Somali-born Democrat from Minnesota, fueling escalating threats against her.
(NYT) As President Trump riled up a rally crowd on Tuesday night describing immigrants bent on harming and killing Americans, he singled out one person in particular as an example of a bad actor.
Foreigners coming into the United States, he told his audience in Iowa, “have to show they can love our country; they have to be proud — not like Ilhan Omar.”
Analysis: America at a Boiling Point: Deaths, Threats, Protests and a Town Hall Attack
An attack at a town hall in Minneapolis, amid a surge in threats against lawmakers, was the latest sign of the fraying of the nation’s political fabric.
Nervous Allies and Fox News: How Trump Realized He Had a Big Problem in Minneapolis
(NYT) President Trump often blusters his way through a crisis, refusing to back down. Minneapolis tested the limits of that strategy.
Protests and a palpable sense of outrage were growing across the country. Even the president’s allies were alarmed. Many of them wanted to see changes on the ground, and several made a recommendation directly in calls to the president: Send Tom Homan, the White House border czar, to Minneapolis.
… And while there is no sign that Mr. Trump is repudiating the tactics used by the federal agents in Minnesota or the core tenets of his immigration policies, the moment was a rare example of the president moving to mitigate the harsh optics associated with a crackdown his administration has otherwise celebrated.

Miller Shifts Blame as Pretti’s Death Splinters Trump Team Unity
(Bloomberg) White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said border patrol agents might not have followed the administration’s instructions in the events that led to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a rare retreat from one of President Donald Trump’s top aides and immigration hardliners.
In a written statement, Miller responded as questions swirl about why both he and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem swiftly accused Pretti of wanting to massacre border agents, when video showed no evidence of that before he was surrounded and fatally shot by federal officers.

27 January
Democrats Push to Impeach and Investigate Noem
Following the fatal shooting in Minneapolis, a drive to impeach the homeland security secretary has drawn dozens more Democratic supporters, including the party’s top three leaders.
Blame game erupts over Trump team’s false claim Alex Pretti sought “massacre”
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Noem
(Axios) Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is under fire for issuing misleading and incendiary information that claimed immigration agents killed an armed Minnesota protestor Saturday because he wanted to “massacre” them.
That language has now become a source of controversy in the Trump administration.
White House officials are blaming Customs and Border Patrol for furnishing inaccurate information, while others are targeting Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and top Trump adviser, six sources with knowledge of the situation told Axios.
Why it matters: The episode illustrates the confusion that gripped the administration after the Saturday shooting death of Minnesota protester Alex Pretti. And it shows the influence of Miller, Trump’s close and longest-serving political adviser whose dominion in the White House far exceeds his title.
Miller’s power extends to de facto oversight of Noem, though she’s a Cabinet secretary who technically outranks him.

Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American January 26, 2026
On right-wing social media, [former Trump advisor Steve] Bannon echoed the language of a dystopian vision of the world that claims immigrants are invading the United States and those protecting them in Minneapolis are dangerous. He told his supporters: “This is just not Minneapolis—this is an organized, well thought through effort to invade the country.” MAGA adherents are embracing the daft idea that the Minnesota people who have come together to protect their neighbors are an organized, paid insurgency.
But the tide seems to be running against them.
‘It’s starting to turn against us’: White House reckons with Minnesota fallout
President Donald Trump offered the first hint that the political crisis engulfing his administration would lead to changes on the ground.
(Politico) On Monday, President Donald Trump offered the first hint that the political crisis engulfing his administration would lead to changes on the ground. He deployed border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis, a move viewed by some administration officials and Trump allies as a recognition that the president needed to change course. Homan, Trump said, will report “directly to me.”
Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong
The pushback against ICE exposed a series of mistaken assumptions.
By Adam Serwer
(The Atlantic) Federal agents have arrested about 3,000 people in the state, but they have released the names of only about 240 of those detained, leaving unclear how many of the larger number have committed any crimes. Many more thousands of people have been affected by the arrests and the fear they have instilled. Minnesota Public Radio estimates that in school districts “with widespread federal activity, as many as 20 to 40 percent of students have been absent in recent weeks.”

What the Administration Is Signaling to Federal Agents After Minnesota
Trump officials’ combative defense of immigration operations has given rise to a culture of impunity.
By David A. Graham
(The Atlantic) Perhaps the most disturbing part of the Trump administration’s immigration operation in Minnesota is not just that agents of the state are killing peacefully protesting citizens on the streets. It’s that they’re doing it with the expectation of impunity, backed by top government officials who are brazenly lying about what happened.
The response from President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and other officials has sent a clear message: When immigration agents kill peaceful protesters, the government will defend them unconditionally, no matter if clear video evidence contradicts its version of events. It will resist investigating shootings, and it will do everything it can to block probes by other authorities. Vice President Vance has even claimed that federal agents have “absolute immunity” for their actions. This approach all but guarantees more killings.
White House Wobbles, Distancing Trump From Initial Response to Minnesota Killing
(NYT) Officials clearly understood that the fatal shooting of a demonstrator posed one of the gravest political threats to President Trump since his inauguration.
White House officials clearly understood that the killing, the second of an American citizen protesting the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis, posed one of the gravest political threats to Mr. Trump since his inauguration just a little over a year ago. Yet they seemed frozen in place, unwilling to walk back the statements by Mr. Miller and Ms. Noem, which were widely repeated throughout the administration, while sending Ms. Leavitt out to insist that “we will let the facts lead and we will let the facts play out in this investigation.”
They provided no evidence to back up the statements by the two officials, who have become the face of Mr. Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. And while Ms. Leavitt would not contradict the two officials, she insisted to reporters that “nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets.”

Greg Bovino Loses His Job
The Border Patrol chief has been ousted from his role as “commander at large,” and will return to El Centro.
By Nick Miroff
Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino’s biggest backers at DHS, are also at risk of losing their jobs, two of the people told me.
The Border Patrol Chief Leading the California Immigration Crackdown
Gregory Bovino has orchestrated thousands of arrests, using confrontational tactics that have made him a MAGA star. His critics say he’s crossing legal and political lines.

25 January
Democrats will not provide votes to advance DHS funding bill in wake of Minneapolis shooting, Schumer says
(CBS) The House on Thursday passed a funding package, along with a separate measure to fund DHS, sending the bills to the Senate for approval, along with two other funding measures that passed the House last week.
In the Senate, the DHS funding measure was expected to be packaged with the other legislation that funds key federal departments in hopes the Senate passes the measures together before the Jan. 30 deadline to fund the government.

Shooting renews urgent legal effort to restrict ICE’s Minnesota operation
(Politico) Saturday’s fatal shooting comes as Trump continues to ramp up aggressive deployment to Democratic-run cities.
“Our demand today is for those federal agencies that are operating in our city, to do so with the same discipline, humanity and integrity that effective law enforcement demands,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said.
Judge grants restraining order against DHS after Border Patrol kills Alex Pretti in Minneapolis
(CBS) U.S. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud granted a temporary restraining order against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Saturday, barring the department from altering or destroying evidence connected to Pretti’s killing.
Minneapolis shootings put Trump’s immigration surge at center of election-year fight
By Bo Erickson and Brad Brooks
Democrats could hold up homeland security funding
Gun rights advocates defend right to carry at protest
Some Republican lawmakers pushing for more information
(Reuters) – A second fatal shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis has thrust President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown deeper into the national political spotlight, forcing Republicans to defend the administration’s hard-line tactics while motivating Democrats, who see it as an urgent election-year issue.

Believe Your Eyes
People are risking their lives to document agents in Minneapolis.
By Charlie Warzel
(The Atlantic) … This is just one example of federal agents terrorizing people in the city. There’s also the photo of a 5-year-old boy being detained outside his home. There’s the video of an agent chasing a teenager through the snow on a residential street as the boy yells “I’m legal” in Spanish. And yesterday, the world saw footage of Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked in the ICU of a Veterans Affairs hospital, as agents pepper-sprayed him, knocked him down, appeared to remove a legally permitted gun from his person, and fired at least 10 bullets into his prone body. (Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has claimed that the agents were the “real victims” and suggested that they were acting in self-defense.)

23 January
ICE arrests 100 people three days into Maine immigration crackdown, DHS says
Organizers say ICE agents have been targeting African nationals amid surge focused in Portland and Lewiston
Immigrant rights groups have been on alert as ICE concentrates its operation on Maine’s two largest cities, Portland and Lewiston. Organizers say agents have been targeting African nationals from Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola, many of them asylum seekers who have made the coastal state home in recent decades.
On Wednesday, a local ICE sighting hotline – organized and run by the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition – said they received more than 1,100 calls, a 35% increase in calls from the previous day. Immigrants in Maine represent only about 4% of the state’s total population, most of whom have legal status to live and work in the US, according to a recent report by the Migration Policy Institute.

12 January
Why Vance Committed So Hard to the Minneapolis Shooter
The vice president knows what ICE means to MAGA.
By David Frum
By coming so vociferously to the shooter’s defense, Vance full-throatedly committed himself to the MAGA mission of enforcing respect by any means necessary. Because there’s always such a strong whiff of cynical calculation and inauthenticity about Vance, he has to say more and go further than many natural MAGA personalities do. He has to pay moral cash where others might be trusted on moral credit. If the Minneapolis shooter is the next Kyle Rittenhouse, Vance dared not delay before thrusting himself at this new MAGA hero’s side.
This is how we arrive at a moment when the country’s highest-ranking officials are endorsing a lethal shooting on the basis of claims refuted by the evidence. Failure to heed the MAGA campaign to redistribute respect is insolence punishable by death.

9 January
ICE Wasn’t Always Like This
In scaling back oversight, the administration has emboldened the agency.
By Will Gottsegen
(The Atlantic) The Minneapolis shooting will get less official scrutiny because of cuts by the Trump administration.
On Wednesday, an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three and a U.S. citizen, in the streets of Minneapolis. She was at least the fourth person killed in a shooting by immigration-enforcement officers during Donald Trump’s second term. Two more people were shot yesterday when a Border Patrol officer fired at a car during a traffic stop in Portland, Oregon; their condition remains unknown.
How ICE Lost Its Guardrails
By Caitlin Dickerson
The changes at DHS are part of a government-wide push by the administration away from transparency and accountability. Trump fired 17 inspectors general soon after he took office. He has neutered civil-rights offices across multiple departments. And he handed ICE the biggest cash infusion it’s ever seen, more than tripling the agency’s budget, without attaching any requirements for oversight. All the while, the president, his top advisers, and his public-affairs offices have pumped out rhetoric and imagery that celebrates the merciless, military-style pursuit of deportations. The overall message to employees, including those who carry weapons, is that anything goes.

2025

19 December
The Truth About Immigration That MAGA Doesn’t Acknowledge
American families rely on immigrants to take care of their children.
By Olga Khazan
(The Atlantic) Millions of parents in the United States, native- and foreign-born alike, rely on immigrants to take care of their kids. (My toddler son has only ever been cared for by immigrant women, myself among them.) Immigrants make up at least 21 percent of the child-care workforce—and this may be an undercount. When fewer immigrants are in the American workforce, economic research suggests, women may work less or have fewer babies—possibly both.

18 December
Pope’s naming of New York archbishop signals continued challenge to Trump on immigration
Ronald Hicks, who endorsed message condemning ICE raids, to lead one of biggest US archdioceses
Pope Leo XIV has named a fellow Chicagoan as the next archbishop of New York, one of the biggest US archdioceses, in a signal that the church will continue its stance against the Trump administration on immigration.
JD Vance’s immigration two-step
(Politico Nightly) The rapidly proliferating public conflicts within the MAGA movement present a distinct danger for the man whose political future depends on holding the coalition together. But Vice President JD Vance appears to have settled on a strategy for bridging these divides: Blame immigration.
In recent comments about fraught topics ranging from housing to healthcare to antisemitism, Vance has repeatedly taken a topic that divides the MAGA faithful and linked it back to immigration, the issue that most unifies the GOP base.

12 December
Green card applicants married to U.S. citizens face new uncertainty amid arrests
The Trump administration says they were detained because they had overstayed their visas, but longtime attorneys say that has never been an issue previously for spouses of U.S. citizens.
(NBC) … These are some of the spouses of U.S. citizens who were recently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at what they thought were going to be routine green card interviews.
… Immigration attorneys told NBC News that this marks an “unprecedented” break in decades-long practice policy, and that their clients are panicked they could be detained even when they are eligible to become legal permanent residents by law and have no criminal histories.
The detentions are one of the latest tactics in President Donald Trump’s policies targeting legal pathways for immigration and increasing scrutiny of green card applicants.

3 December
How Trump is intensifying his crackdown on every form of immigration to the US
(CNN) President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown, prompted by the shooting of two National Guard members, means he has now halted or significantly tightened every legal and illegal form of foreign entry into the US, prompting widespread fear and confusion among immigrants who are unsure what will happen to their pending cases.
Trump’s mass deportation campaign has garnered attention for its heavy-handed arrest tactics of undocumented immigrants nationwide. But the administration’s steady drumbeat of incremental changes to the US immigration system has also been disruptive — gumming up an already-arduous process for millions of people.

3 October
First lawsuit filed challenging Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee
The lawsuit claims Trump does not have the authority to override the law that created the H-1B visa programme.
First lawsuit filed challenging President Trump’s $100,000 fee for H-1B visas
Lawsuit argues Trump lacked constitutional authority to impose the fee
Employers had typically previously paid $2,000 to $5,000 in fees to sponsor H-1B workers
(Reuters) – A coalition of unions, employers and religious groups filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking to block President Donald Trump’s bid to impose
, opens new tab a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly-skilled foreign workers.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco is the first to challenge a proclamation Trump issued two weeks ago announcing the fee as the Republican president moves to further restrict immigration to the United States.

22-24 September
(GZEROmedia)  The Trump administration introduced a $100,000 one-time fee for those who wish to obtain a H-1B visa. The initial announcement sparked upheaval among major US firms, as it appeared to suggest that there would be an annual $100,000 fee for the visa. The White House clarified that it would be a one-off payment, and wouldn’t apply to existing visaholders. The majority of H-1B visaholders are Indian nationals.
‘Economically illiterate’: Trump’s $100K H-1B visa fee
By Youyou Zhou, León Krauze and David Bier
The fee is a cleverer way to do this. Because it’s just shutting down the entire program without saying that you are. If you read the order itself, you’ve got paragraphs upon paragraphs of economically illiterate libel against H-1Bs, and not a single sentence explaining where this $100K number came from … because it has zero basis, like the rest of it.
What to know about the H-1B visa Trump has targeted with $100,000 fees, generating confusion, fear
The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to slap a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas has stunned and confused employers, students and workers from the United States to India and beyond.
Since announcing the decision Friday, the White House has tried to reassure jittery companies that the fee does not apply to existing visa holders and that their H-1B employees traveling abroad will not be stranded, unable to re-enter the United States without coming up with $100,000. The new policy took effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Sunday.
“Key questions remain, such as whether the new fee will apply to universities and nonprofit research organizations, employers that Congress has exempted from the annual limit on H-1B visas,” said Bo Cooper, partner at the immigration law firm Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy.

28 August
Who Wants to Work for ICE? They Do.
At a busy hiring expo in Texas, new recruits answer Trump’s call.
By Nick Miroff
The Trump administration plans to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 new ICE officers by the beginning of next year, a frantic pace that would nearly triple the current workforce. The Department of Homeland Security is set to spend more than $40 million in the next several months on ICE recruitment, even as the department says it’s already received 130,000 applications. ICE had advertised same-day offers to qualified candidates, especially those with prior military service or law-enforcement experience, and a $50,000 bonus to sweeten the pot. …
ICE has about 5,700 deportation officers nationwide. New entry-level jobs will pay roughly $70,000 to $90,000 a year, including overtime and cost-of-living adjustments, officials told me. Within Department of Homeland Security agencies, mass-hiring binges are viewed warily, and the rapid expansion of the U.S. Border Patrol a generation ago is still regarded as a cautionary tale. The Border Patrol lowered its hiring standards and ended up with more cases of employee misconduct and corruption. …

21-22 August
Impact of ‘Continuous Vetting’ for U.S. Visa Holders Remains Unclear
The State Department offered few details about its plans for the 55 million visa holders, and it was unclear if it was culling travel documents, or making less drastic changes.
(NYT) A State Department statement on Thursday saying that all holders of valid U.S. visas would be subject to “continuous vetting” sounded like a dire warning to the more than 55 million foreign nationals who have permission to be in the United States.
But with few details about how the department plans to execute the effort, it was unclear if the pronouncement heralded a drastic culling of travel documents and acceleration in deportations, or something less. … Since his return to office, President Trump has made immigration enforcement a top priority, expanding efforts to remove not only people in the United States without legal authorization, but also visa holders, including thousands of students whom the State Department said had “either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism” while in the country.
Trump administration to review all 55m US visa holders for potential rule violations
State department says all people who hold valid US visas are subject to ‘continuous vetting’, including of social media
“The State Department revokes visas any time there are indications of a potential ineligibility, which includes things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization,” a department spokesperson said.
It follows an announcement by the Trump administration on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.

21 August
Florida ordered to dismantle Alligator Alcatraz over environmental impact
(WaPo) The ruling, which gives the state 60 days to act, comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to convert a prison in North Florida into a second immigrant detention site.
A federal judge in Miami gave the state of Florida 60 days to clear out the immigrant detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz, handing environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians a win after they clashed with Gov. Ron DeSantis over the environmental impacts the makeshift site was having in the federally protected Everglades.
The ruling late Thursday from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, which forbids state officials from moving any other migrants there, deals a blow to what had become a marquee symbol of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.

4-5 August
Tourists from Malawi and Zambia are first to face $15,000 visa bonds in US
Advocates have denounced the bond scheme as a ‘legalised shakedown’ that profits from vulnerable, lawful travellers.
(Al Jazeera) The idea, announced earlier this week, is to impose bonds on countries whose citizens have high rates of overstaying their US visas.
Tourists from those countries would have to pay an amount ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 at the time of their visa interview to enter the US. Then, if the tourist departs on or before their visa’s expiration, that amount would be refunded to them.
The money would also be returned if the visa were cancelled, if the travel does not occur, or if the tourist is denied entry into the US.
Should a tourist overstay their visa — or apply for asylum or another immigration-related programme while in the US — the federal government would keep the money.
More countries, in addition to Malawi and Zambia, are expected to be added to the list. The bond requirement is slated to take effect for those two countries starting on August 20.
State Department may require visa applicants to post bond of up to $15,000 to enter the US
(AP) — The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a move that may make the process unaffordable for many.
In a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the department said it would start a 12-month pilot program under which people from countries deemed to have high overstay rates and deficient internal document security controls could be required to post bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 when they apply for a visa.
The proposal comes as the Trump administration is tightening requirements for visa applicants. Last week, the State Department announced that many visa renewal applicants would have to submit to an additional in-person interview, something that was not required in the past. In addition, the department is proposing that applicants for the Visa Diversity Lottery program have valid passports from their country of citizenship.

31 July
ICE’s Mind-Bogglingly Massive Blank Check
Congress has appropriated billions with few strings attached, creating a likely windfall for well-connected firms.
By Caitlin Dickerson
(The Atlantic) The more than $175 billion that Congress handed to the nation’s immigration enforcers when it passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is larger than the annual military budget of every country in the world except the United States and China. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—just one component of the Department of Homeland Security—is getting more money than any other law-enforcement agency in America. All of this cash will be used to fund the next three and a half years of a deportation campaign that the public is already starting to question, at a time when the southern border is all but deserted.
But as striking as the overall amount of money is how little we know about why it was necessary or how the funds will be spent. The bill placed few guardrails on ICE or Customs and Border Protection—both of which have a history of financial mismanagement—and dedicated no money to oversight. What we do know from the agencies’ public statements and contracts that are already in the works is that the money will be used to expand detention and surveillance systems, and that it will enrich some of the administration’s closest friends.

10 July
Freed from ICE detention, Mahmoud Khalil files $20 million claim against Trump administration
(AP) The filing — a precursor to a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act — names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department.
It comes as the deportation case against Khalil, a 30-year-old recent graduate student at Columbia University, continues to wind its way through the immigration court system.
The goal, Khalil said, is to send a message that he won’t be intimidated into silence.
“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”
Khalil said he plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.
…the Trump administration publicly celebrated the arrest, promising to deport him and others whose protests against Israel it dubbed “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
Khalil, who has condemned antisemitism before and since his arrest, was not accused of a crime and has not been linked to Hamas or any other terror group.

7 July
In Letters from an American July 7, 2025 Heather Cox Richardson details the chilling situation in Los Angeles
“At about 10:30 this morning local time, heavily armed masked agents in trucks, armored vehicles, a helicopter, on foot, and on horseback, accompanied by a gun mounted on a truck raided the MacArthur Park area of Los Angeles. Journalist Mel Buer reported that agents from Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the National Guard, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brought what she called a “massive federal presence.”
Fox News Channel personnel were embedded with the raiders and broadcast throughout the operation, suggesting that it was designed for the media as a show of force to intimidate opponents.” …
Democratic states double down on laws resisting Trump’s immigration crackdown
(AP) As President Donald Trump’s administration targets states and local governments for not cooperating with federal immigration authorities, lawmakers in some Democratic-led states are intensifying their resistance by strengthening state laws restricting such cooperation.
In California alone, more than a dozen pro-immigrant bills passed either the Assembly or Senate this week, including one prohibiting schools from allowing federal immigration officials into nonpublic areas without a judicial warrant.
Other state measures have sought to protect immigrants in housing, employment and police encounters, even as Trump’s administration has ramped up arrests as part of his plan for mass deportations.
The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller
(NYT) … In early June, after an ICE raid in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles triggered protests, Mr. Trump deployed several thousand National Guard troops and Marines to the city, over the objection of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The crisis, from the immigration raids that sparked the protests to the militarized response that tried to put the protests down, was almost entirely of Mr. Miller’s making. And it served as a testament to the remarkable position he now occupies in Mr. Trump’s Washington. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who reportedly accompanied Mr. Miller on his visit to ICE headquarters, seems to defer to him. “It’s really Stephen running D.H.S.,” a Trump adviser said. …
There is much truth to the conventional wisdom that the biggest difference between the first and second Trump presidencies is that, in the second iteration, Mr. Trump is unrestrained. The same is true of Mr. Miller. He has emerged as Mr. Trump’s most powerful, and empowered, adviser. With the passage of the big policy bill, ICE will have an even bigger budget to execute Mr. Miller’s vision and, in effect, serve as his own private army. …

4 July
Concentration Camp Labor Cannot Become Normal
Timothy Snyder
With the passage of Trump’s death bill, we face the prospect of many great harms, including an archipelago of concentration camps across the United States.
Concentration camps are sites of tempting slave labor. Among many other aims, the Soviets used concentration camp labor to build canals and work mines. The Nazi German concentration camp system followed a capitalist version of the same logic: it drew in businesses with the prospect of inexpensive labor.
We know this and have no excuse not to act.
What happens next in the U.S.? Workers who are presented as “undocumented” will be taken to the camps. Perhaps they will work in the camps themselves, as slaves to government projects. But more likely they will be offered to American companies on special terms: a one-time payment to the government, for example, with no need for wages or benefits. In the simplest version, and perhaps the most likely, detained people will be offered back to the companies for which they were just working. …

Letters from an American July 1, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson
Just after noon today, the Senate passed its version of the budget reconciliation bill. …
While the measure slashes public welfare programs, it pours $170.7 billion into immigration enforcement. The American Immigration Council broke out the numbers today: The Senate bill provides $51.6 billion to build a wall on the border, more than three times what Trump spent on the wall in his first term. It provides $45 billion for detention facilities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an increase of 265% in ICE’s annual detention budget. It provides $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement, a threefold increase in ICE’s annual budget.
When Trump talks about undocumented migrants as being dangerous criminals, he appears to have bought into the fantasy that the U.S. is a hellscape. In fact, about 8% of arrested migrants have been convicted of violent crimes. The administration defines anyone who breaks immigration law—which is a misdemeanor, not a felony—as a criminal. One of the reasons for the push to get the bill passed before July 4 is that the Department of Homeland Security has blown through its budget and needs the bill’s additional funding to operate.
While the Senate considered the budget reconciliation bill today, President Donald J. Trump visited the new detention facility in the Florida Everglades designed to hold 5,000 undocumented immigrants. The facility will cost $450 million a year, which will be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Florida attorney general who came up with the plan gave it the name “Alligator Alcatraz,” a cutesy name for tents filled with cages for undocumented immigrants.

27 June
Supreme Court Limits Judges’ Ability to Issue Nationwide Injunctions, a Win for Trump
The decision could reshape the way U.S. citizenship is granted, even temporarily.
(NYT) The Supreme Court on Friday [27 June] limited the ability of federal judges to temporarily pause President Trump’s executive orders, a major victory for the administration. But the justices made no ruling on the constitutionality of his move to end birthright citizenship, and they stopped his order from taking effect for 30 days.
The 6-to-3 decision, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and split along ideological lines, may dramatically reshape how citizenship is granted in the United States, even temporarily. The ruling means that the practice of extending citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary residents and visitors would end in the 28 states that have not challenged the measure.

25 June
A look at how Trump’s big bill could change the US immigration system
(AP) President Donald Trump’s spending cuts and border security package would inject roughly $150 billion into his mass deportation agenda over the next four years, funding everything from an extension of the United States’ southern border wall to detention centers to thousands of additional law enforcement staff.
The current annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government’s primary department for immigration enforcement, is around $10 billion. If the Republican president’s big bill passes in Congress, the immense cash infusion could reshape America’s immigration system by expanding the law enforcement and detention network while increasing costs to legally immigrate to the U.S.
The Senate is debating its own version of the bill, which largely aligns with the House’s approach when it comes to these issues. In recent days, Republicans have focused on sometimes-violent protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown to press for quick passage over Democratic opposition.
That’s what happened earlier in June when protests triggered unrest in parts of Los Angeles.
“The lawlessness happening in LA is ANOTHER reason why we need to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill IMMEDIATELY,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. “It provides the ESSENTIAL funding needed to secure our nation’s borders.”
Plenty, though, remains unclear about the legislation. …

Heather Cox Richardson: June 24, 2025
ICE’s detentions continue to create a backlash. Isabela Dias of Mother Jones reported that the number of migrants detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities across the country has reached a record high of more than 56,000, leading to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Federal law permits members of Congress to make unannounced visits to ICE facilities to inspect them, but officers at the Department of Homeland Security last week said members of Congress needed to give at least 72 hours notice before an inspection.
ICE claims the power to “deny a request or otherwise cancel, reschedule or terminate a tour or visit” by lawmakers or by members of their staff if “facility management or other ICE officials deem it appropriate to do so.”
Inspections will be hard to conduct at the newly approved detention facility deep in the Florida Everglades designed to house up to 5,000 migrants. Members of the state legislature say they were not consulted about the plan. Florida says the new facility will cost about $450 million a year to operate. The federal government will reimburse that money through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
News broke today that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, widely believed to be the individual responsible for the administration’s draconian immigration policies, owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, the data and intelligence software company owned by Peter Thiel. Palantir has a number of valuable contracts with ICE to track undocumented immigrants.
Stephen Miller Has Financial Stake in Company Helping ICE With Deportations: Report
The president’s chief immigration hawk has a substantial amount of stock in Palantir, one of ICE’s most prominent contractors … A Project on Government Oversight (POGO) analysis of disclosures from several administration figures found that Miller and at least 11 other White House officials and staffers own stock in Palantir.
Florida sprints ahead with ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration detention center project
The Department of Homeland Security signed plans to house up to 5,000 people in Florida who are either arrested by state officers or detained by federal immigration authorities.
(Politico) Florida’s headline-grabbing push to create “Alligator Alcatraz” — an immigration detention center deep in the Everglades — happened swiftly, with little apparent notice to state legislators responsible for paying for it or to local officials who will have it on their doorstep.

18 June
Trump’s immigration crackdown collides with political reality
(Politico) Donald Trump campaigned last year on the promise of an aggressive, wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration throughout the country and a mass deportation program that would expel record numbers of undocumented immigrants.
Now he understands the political cost of those promises.
Over the last week, Trump has been caught between different factions within his administration that appear to disagree on a politically fraught subject — whether to effectively exempt farms, hotels and restaurants from the administration’s supposed zero-tolerance enforcement agenda.
It’s a debate that is not likely to go away anytime soon — particularly given the administration’s insistence on keeping immigration enforcement at the forefront of its domestic agenda, as well as persistent questions since Trump’s inauguration concerning the administration’s selective enforcement of federal law.
The immigration debate spilled into public view last week after Trump posted a message claiming that farmers and businesses in the hospitality industry were complaining “that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.” “Changes are coming!” he added.

5 May
Spy Agencies Do Not Think Venezuela Directs Gang, Declassified Memo Shows
The release of the memo further undercuts the Trump administration’s rationale for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport scores of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.
For Trump, the Constitution Is a Hindrance as He Pushes for Deportations
President Trump and his allies have portrayed their efforts to bypass due process as necessary for national security.

30 April-1 May
Robert Reich: The Alien Enemies Act does NOT give Trump authority to abduct and deport
A federal judge today ruled that Trump doesn’t have authority to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants without a hearing.
It’s a major blow to the regime’s deportation blitz, which has so far summarily removed 130 immigrants residing in the United States to a brutal prison in El Salvador.
The act is applicable only in times of war, said the judge, Fernando Rodriguez Jr. But, he noted, we are not at war with Venezuela — notwithstanding the regime’s claim that the U.S. is being invaded by a Venezuelan gang.

6-Day ICE Operation in Florida Resulted in More Than 1,000 Arrests
The Trump administration hopes to work with local law enforcement as it tries to reach its goals for mass deportation.
ICE officials said the operation targeted people with deportation orders and those with criminal histories. More than 60 percent of those picked up had either an arrest or a conviction, the agency said.
Judge frees Columbia student activist whom Trump administration wants to deport
(Politico) Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian students who were legally studying in the United States.
Mahdawi is Palestinian and grew up in the West Bank but has lived in the U.S. for a decade. He has a green card, making him a legal permanent resident, and was in the final stages of the process to become a U.S. citizen when immigration authorities arrested him.
Like other pro-Palestinian students and professors who have been arrested and thrust into swift deportation proceedings in President Donald Trump’s first 100 days, Mahdawi has argued that the administration is violating the First Amendment by targeting him for criticizing Israel and participating in campus protests.
DEPORTED INTO DARKNESS: Trump’s Regime Vanished Andry Hernández Romero — And Called It “Security”
Andry wasn’t deported to his home country. He was dumped in El Salvador — a nation he had no known connection to — because Trump had made a quiet deal with its government: take our “gang-affiliated” deportees, no questions asked.
WHO DID THIS?
Donald Trump signed the orders.
Stephen Miller built the playbook.
ICE carried them out.
CoreCivic profited from it.
Everyone got what they wanted.
Everyone except Andry.
Hour by Hour: How Trump Deported Migrants Despite Judge’s Order
The New York Times reconstructed how the Trump administration and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador struck a deal that led to the deportation of more than 200 Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran prison.
The timeline below focuses on March 15, the day deportation planes took off, even as a federal judge sought to halt them.
When Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Came to an Immigrant Mayor’s City
A raid on a largely Hispanic nightclub last weekend highlighted the wrenching choices mayors face between anti-Trump constituents and federal pressure for police cooperation.

25 April
U.S. Restores Legal Status for Many International Students, but Warns of Removals to Come
Immigration officials signaled that the Trump administration would continue to pursue efforts to terminate the legal status of the students, despite a wave of legal challenges.
The decision, revealed during a court hearing in Washington, was a dramatic shift by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as the administration characterized it as only a temporary reprieve.
The back and forth only contributed to the anxiety and confusion facing international students as the administration has moved to cancel more than 1,500 student visas in recent weeks.
On Friday morning, Joseph F. Carilli, a Justice Department lawyer, told a federal judge in Washington that immigration officials had begun work on a new system for reviewing and terminating the records of international students and academics studying in the United States. Until the process was complete, he said, student records that had been purged from a federal database in recent weeks would be restored, along with their legal status.
19 April
Losing International Students Could Devastate Many Colleges
Students could bypass the United States for friendlier countries as the Trump administration attacks universities and revokes visas. Their loss could hurt schools and the economy.

30 March
‘Can I travel?’: U.S. green-card holders cancel trips, on edge after detentions
Lawful permanent residents fear they are not immune from President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
(WaPo) Several recent federal enforcement actions against green-card holders have gained widespread notoriety and cast a cloud of fear and anxiety over many of the nation’s estimated 12.8 million lawful permanent residents whose legal rights to live and work in the country once gave them confidence that they were immune from President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
The number of confirmed detentions appears limited to a handful of highly publicized incidents, including the arrests of a pair of campus activists in New York, a German national returning to New England from an overseas trip, and a Filipina woman in Seattle who has lived in the United States for three decades.

26 March
HELL ON EARTH
Inside the Trump Regime’s Mass Detention Nightmare—Where Women Are Chained, Men Die in Custody, and the Machine Keeps Grinding
(Closer to the Edge) Three people are now dead in ICE custody. Three. In just over a month. Genry Ruiz-Guillen, 29, from Honduras, died January 23. Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, 45, from Ethiopia, died January 29. Maksym Chernyak, 44, from Ukraine, died February 20.
No convictions. No due process. No protection. Just death under fluorescent lights.
And while the bodies pile up, the architects of this system are laughing.
Tom Homan—now officially Trump’s Border Czar—is no longer just shouting from Fox News panels. He’s in charge. And he’s promising “deportations every day,” vowing to expel millions. He’s pushing to build new detention camps on military bases and at Guantanamo Bay, to outsource incarceration to local jails, and to lower federal detention standards across the board. He wants to hand over human lives to any sheriff with a cage and a budget. This isn’t law enforcement—it’s a national purge.
… ICE has 46,269 people in custody—far above its legal bed count of 41,500. Congress just rewarded them with another $430 million. Detention centers are overflowing. Guards are whispering, “It shouldn’t be like this.” But they keep turning the key. They keep locking the doors.
Because this system wasn’t designed to rehabilitate. It wasn’t designed to deter. It was designed to break people.
And it’s working.
Politicians’ attacks on immigrants lack solid evidence: New data set the record straight
The data set, called the Immigrant Exclusion from Social Programs Index (IESPI), measures how much immigrants’ access to pensions, health care, unemployment benefits, housing benefits, social assistance and active labour market programs compares to that of native-born citizens.
In the United States, President Donald Trump has voiced concerns about immigrants’ welfare access repeatedly, both during his first term and since taking office again this year. Ironically, [it is] among the most exclusionary

25 March
DHS suspends green card processing for refugees, asylees
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it is pausing review of green card applications for some refugees and asylees, leaving in limbo those who came to the U.S. after fleeing unrest.
The directive from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would impact refugees already approved to come to the United States, as well as those who were granted asylum after petitioning for the protection in immigration court.

Lawyers advise Canadians working in U.S. to avoid travel amid border crackdown
(Globe & Mail) U.S. immigration lawyers are warning foreigners working and studying in America – including Canadians – to refrain from international travel, saying that crossing the U.S. border has become significantly more unpredictable since U.S. President Donald Trump took office and that they run the risk of being detained or refused entry.
Don’t visit the US – it just isn’t worth the risks right now
Arwa Mahdaw
Minor visa infractions have seen tourists detained, shackled and deported by overzealous US border staff. There are many more welcoming places to go on holiday
(The Guardian) There have been a number of recent incidents where white westerners – people who aren’t normally targeted by overzealous US immigration authorities – have been detained, deported or denied entry for obscure reasons.
Take the 28-year-old Welsh artist Rebecca Burke, for example. She was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) for 19 days in what her father described as “horrendous conditions”. Now, to be fair, Burke had the wrong paperwork: she hadn’t realised that she needed a working visa instead of a tourist visa in order to exchange domestic chores for accommodation with a host family. But getting imprisoned for almost three weeks over a mix-up and then being led on to a deportation flight – in chains! – back to a country that is supposedly a close ally, is obviously extreme. A Canadian woman also made headlines after being detained by Ice for two weeks when immigration enforcement officers flagged her visa application paperwork. And two German tourists were similarly held for almost two weeks in a detention centre.
19 March
Jasmine Mooney: I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped
I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky

13-15 March
Judge blocks Trump administration from implementing Alien Enemies Act
(The Hill) A federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on Saturday preventing the removal of Venezuelan undocumented immigrants presumed to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The order issued by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg will halt deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under President Trump’s proclamation for 14 days as a result of the lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward and the ACLU.
Trump Wants to Speed Up Deportations With Alien Enemies Act: What to Know
(NYT) President Trump is planning to invoke an obscure wartime authority in the coming days to rapidly accelerate the deportation of immigrants from the United States, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Trump could invoke the law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, as soon as Friday.
What is the Alien Enemies Act Trump invoked to speed deportations?
(The Hill) President Trump is invoking an 18th-century wartime law that will allow the federal government to detain or deport people who are natives and citizens of countries deemed foreign adversaries — a move that’s seen as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown effort.
The Alien Enemies Act — part of the Alien and Sedition Acts that Congress adopted in 1798 — gives the federal government additional authority to regulate non-citizens in times of war. It has been used just three times in the past, during the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II, as the Congressional Research Service detailed in a February report.

15 March
B.C. woman detained by U.S. immigration officials for nearly 2 weeks returns home
A statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week said [Jasmine] Mooney was detained because she did not have legal documentation to be in the country.
The agency said she was processed in accordance with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order that subjected “all aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law” to possible arrest.
Canadian woman detained by ICE being used as ‘example,’ immigration experts warn
Immigration experts are warning Canadians to make sure they have the correct forms and documentation if they want to cross the border into the United States..
Jasmine Mooney, originally from Vancouver, tried to enter the U.S. from Mexico at the San Diego border last Monday.
“I was reapplying for my work visa and with no warning about what was about to happen I was taken by ICE”… Mooney was applying for a TN Visa, which is a nonimmigrant visa that allows Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the United States in specific professional occupations.

Trump’s Immigration Machine: Turning Legal Residents into Targets
(Closer to the edge) …the immigration system under Donald Trump’s second term is no longer just about catching criminals. It’s about breaking people — legal residents, green card holders, people who once believed they were safe.
Schmidt’s detention wasn’t some rogue act by an overzealous ICE agent. It’s part of a calculated effort to expand immigration enforcement beyond the undocumented population and into a new class of targets: lawful residents who, under the right circumstances, can be just as vulnerable.
[His] story is one example in a growing pattern — one where green card holders are facing aggressive scrutiny, detentions, and deportation threats over things that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow five years ago.
If Schmidt’s ordeal felt arbitrary, Mahmoud Khalil’s situation was outright political. A Palestinian graduate student at Columbia University and a lawful U.S. resident, Khalil became a target after participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The system doesn’t need you to break a major law anymore. Trump’s immigration crackdown has turned green card holders into potential targets for things as small as missing a court notice or being affiliated with the wrong political cause.
Even Canadian snowbirds…staying more than 30 days in the U.S. are now required to register with immigration authorities. The warning? Failure to comply could result in deportation or reentry bans — a thinly veiled threat wrapped in bureaucratic language.

How a Columbia Student Fled to Canada After ICE Came Looking for Her
Ranjani Srinivasan’s student visa was revoked by U.S. immigration authorities. That was just the start of her odyssey.
(NYT) Ms. Srinivasan, a Fulbright recipient who was pursuing a doctoral degree in urban planning, was caught in the dragnet of President Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators through the use of federal immigration powers. She is one of a handful of noncitizens that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has targeted at Columbia in recent days.

14 March
Draft List for New Travel Ban Proposes Trump Target 43 Countries
A draft circulating inside the administration lists three tiers of countries whose citizens may face restrictions on entering the United States.
(NYT) A draft list of recommendations developed by diplomatic and security officials suggests a “red” list of 11 countries whose citizens would be flatly barred from entering the United States. They are Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, the officials said.
Officials at embassies and in regional bureaus at the State Department, and security specialists at other departments and intelligence agencies, have been reviewing the draft. They are providing comment about whether descriptions of deficiencies in particular countries are accurate or whether there are policy reasons — like not risking disruption to cooperation on some other priority — to reconsider including some.
The draft proposal also included an “orange” list of 10 countries for which travel would be restricted but not cut off. In those cases, affluent business travelers might be allowed to enter, but not people traveling on immigrant or tourist visas.

Almost 100 arrested during protest occupying Trump Tower over Mahmoud Khalil
Demonstrators led by Jewish Voice for Peace demanding release of Palestinian activist stood in US president’s New York City building.
9-10 March
Trump warns that arrest of Palestinian activist at Columbia will be ‘first of many’
(AP) — President Donald Trump warned Monday that the arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University will be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza.
Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful U.S. resident who was a graduate student at Columbia until December, was detained Saturday by federal immigration agents in New York and flown to an immigration jail in Louisiana.
Immigration agents arrest Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests
(AP) — Federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian activist Saturday who played a prominent role in Columbia University’s protests against Israel, a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s pledge to detain and deport student activists.
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until this past December, was inside his university-owned apartment Saturday night when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told The Associated Press.
Greer said she spoke by phone with one of the ICE agents during the arrest, who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that instead, according to the lawyer.
Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against the war in Gaza that swept college campuses last spring. The administration has claimed participants forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.

Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order Reaches the Supreme Court
Trump administration lawyers asked the justices to limit the sweep of decisions by three lower courts that issued nationwide pauses on the policy.
(NYT) Lawyers for President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift a nationwide pause imposed on the president’s order ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and foreign residents.
The move represents the first time the legal wrangling over the president’s order to end birthright citizenship has reached the Supreme Court. If the Trump administration succeeds, the policy could immediately go into effect in some parts of the country.
Three federal courts, in Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington State, had issued directives temporarily pausing the order, which was signed by Mr. Trump on his first day in office and declared that citizenship would be denied to babies who do not have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.

7-10 March
Snowbirds, take note: The U.S. says these foreign nationals must register
Foreign nationals visiting the U.S. for more than 30 days will have to register with the government in order to avoid penalties, a shift that could impact millions of Canadians who head south every year, including snowbirds.
The rule was part of U.S. President Donald Trump‘s “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” executive order, which he signed on Jan. 20 and applies to anyone who isn’t a permanent resident.
Failure to comply could result in criminal or civil penalties, the post reads.
… ‘Canadians who have entered by land and are in the United States for 30 days or more [must register].’”
That includes the approximately one million Canadian snowbirds who often travel to warmer destinations in the U.S. to escape the cold, according to the Canadian Snowbirds Association.