Joselyn Walsh was working from her Pilsen home last month when her phone began to ring. It was a special agent from the FBI, the caller said, and they needed to speak with her.

Unfamiliar with the number, the 31-year-old part-time researcher, part-time garden store worker dismissed the call as spam. But then her cell sounded again. This time, Walsh googled the 10 digits flashing up at her.

Sure enough, it was the FBI headquarters in Chicago. And they had a warrant out for her arrest.

“How is this possible?” Walsh wondered.

Walsh is among six protesters facing federal conspiracy charges in one of the most high-profile cases to emerge from Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s mass deportation mission in Chicago this fall. They are accused of conspiring to forcibly impede a federal immigration agent at a September protest at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview.

Charged alongside four Democratic politicians and one political staffer, Walsh is arguably the least known of the group, known as the ‘Broadview Six.’ She said she doesn’t know her co-defendants and still doesn’t know why, among the hundreds that went to protest outside of the west suburban processing center during the two-month operation, she’s been singled out in federal court.

The case stands to test the impact and bounds of protest in the second Trump administration. 

“I think (conviction),” said Steven Heyman, a law professor with the Chicago-Kent College of Law, “would send a real strong message that the government is capable of taking severe measures to suppress, I would say, legitimate dissent.”

Walsh remains confident in her innocence. But she’s keenly aware of what’s at stake.

“There’s the reality of wow, years in prison are on the line here,” she said. Still, the charges have also sharpened her resolve, spurring her to speak louder.

Weeks after her indictment, she continues to use her voice, often performing as part of a protest music collective and sometimes, returning to Broadview. Her co-defendants, by themselves and through attorneys, have denounced the charges as an attack on the First Amendment and maintained they will not be deterred. They’re not alone.

After an arraignment hearing in the case outside of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse downtown just over a month ago, dozens of protesters gathered under the red sculpted arches of Federal Plaza.

“We support the Broadview Six!” they chanted.

Almost immediately after the Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of Operation Midway Blitz in early September, protests grew outside Broadview’s ICE processing center, where the federal government held detainees for days in what a class-action lawsuit described as dirty and unsafe conditions. The near daily confrontations brought tear gas, baton rounds and dozens of arrests.

The conspiracy charges against Walsh and her co-defendants stem from a protest outside the building nearly three months ago. Alongside Walsh, charged are congressional candidate Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, Cook County Board candidate Catherine “Cat” Sharp, 45th Ward Democratic Committeeman Michael Rabbit, Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw, and Andre Martin, who is Abughazaleh’s deputy campaign manager.

The group is accused of surrounding and damaging an ICE vehicle during a Broadview protest on the morning of Sept. 26. An 11-page indictment alleges the group “crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle” and pushed against it “to hinder and impede its movement.”

Prosecutors further allege protesters scratched the car’s body, broke a side mirror and a rear windshield wiper and etched the word “PIG” into the paint.

The indictment includes the conspiracy count — which carries a maximum sentence of six years in federal prison — as well as several other counts of impeding a federal officer, each punishable by up to one year in federal prison.

Walsh started protesting in Broadview early on into the blitz. She flocked to the facility to sing.

A lifelong musician from rural Missouri, Walsh said she’d often read about the goings-on in the world growing up. But she was inspired to start taking action after 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, while she was at college in St. Louis.

“(It) was this moment of, I think, recognizing how … power and control works in our country and in our world,” she said.

Since moving to Chicago six years ago, Walsh has grown into her advocacy. After working at a food and farming nonprofit in the city — work Walsh says was, and still is, important to her — she found herself wanting to delve into community organizing. She hit her stride through music.

For the past two years, Walsh has performed in a citywide collective of people working to bring “the power of music to protests,” she said. Called Songs for Liberation, the group includes musicians and non-musicians alike (even “shower singers,” Walsh noted). The group started as Songs for Ceasefire in support of Palestine but has grown to encompass a broader mission to dissent through song.

“Protests don’t necessarily have a lot of music,” Walsh said. “But (we think it’s) a really powerful thing.”

 The collective often performs at events and protests, sometimes by invitation and sometimes just by members’ interest, with appearances ranging from marches outside the Democratic National Convention last year to caroling outside Christkindlmarket.

The Broadview protests, which became a flash point against the Trump administration’s crackdown, were a natural fit for the collective. For weeks through the blitz, and even still today as immigration enforcement continues, some amalgamation of members would travel out to the facility and through the clashes and commotion and force, perform.

“No human is illegal here,” Walsh sang with the collective one morning in Broadview, her performance captured in a video posted online. A gas mask hung around Walsh’s arm as she strummed a guitar. “We refuse to be controlled by fear.”

Andrew Walsh isn’t surprised by his daughter’s activism. While she was a shy kid, he recalled that she’s always been fiercely compassionate. And she’s long been privy to conversations about morality and politics. Her mother is a minister. Andrew is a religion professor at a small college in Missouri, whose research focuses on the intersection of religion and social issues.

Andrew said he’s proud of his daughter. And terrified.

“(But) we can’t simply submit in fear,” he said. “Because if we all submit in fear, we’ve seen in history how that turns out.”

Sept. 26 started out just like any other day of protesting and singing, Walsh recalled, but what did stick out to her was that it felt like “there was a whole other level of random impunity.”  That morning, federal agents fired baton rounds, tear gas and other less-lethal ammunition at about 200 people gathered outside the Broadview processing center, the Tribune reported at the time.

Walsh remembered leaving early after a foam baton round struck and put a hole in her guitar.

“We’re just singing and then all of a sudden, I feel this impact,” she said. After a moment of disbelief, Walsh walked away, drank water, spoke with some friends and ultimately, went home.

Walsh, on the advice of her attorney, couldn’t speak to the crux of the indictment, though she did call the government’s allegations “totally baseless.”

In a video of the confrontation cited by the Department of Justice, a black SUV is seen slowly rolling through a crowd of people as they chant, “up, up with liberation, down, down with deportation!” As the car inches forward, footage shows some protesters hitting the hood and windows as they try to block its movement. In another video that has circulated widely online, a guitar briefly flashes into frame.

A request for comment sent to the Department of Justice was forwarded to an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, who declined to comment because the case was pending.

“Federal agents perform dangerous, essential work every single day to enforce our immigration laws and keep our communities safe,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an October statement when charges were announced. “When individuals resort to force or intimidation to interfere with that mission, they attack not only the agents themselves but the rule of law they represent.”

The FBI called Walsh a month later. She’d been continuing to protest, while balancing her research job and taking shifts at a Humboldt Park garden store. Also due to get married in June, Walsh and her partner have been planning a wedding and had a tasting set for the day the FBI rang. They canceled their appointment.

The news of her arrest warrant left Walsh shocked and confused.

“I’m just sitting here, wracking my brain, like what possibly could have happened?” she said. 

There’s been a growing trend in protests giving way to conspiracy charges.

Last year, San Francisco prosecutors charged 26 protesters with federal conspiracy after they allegedly blocked the Golden Gate Bridge for hours to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Amid the immigration protests in Los Angeles this summer, an activist was indicted on a federal conspiracy charge after he was accused of handing out face shields during an anti-ICE demonstration, though the charges have since been dropped. In Washington, nine people are facing a federal conspiracy charge tied to an immigration protest outside a Spokane DHS office earlier this year.

The First Amendment protects individuals’ right to express their views on the government, said Heyman, the Chicago-Kent College of Law professor. Those protections do not extend to “true threats of violence” or false and defamatory statements — but they do extend to sharp criticism, Heyman said.

In his estimation, “most of the kinds of criticisms that these protesters are making about ICE and the Trump administration (are) 100% protected by the First Amendment,” Heyman said.

Where problems arise is that, generally, conduct is not constitutionally protected, he said.

“If they’re physically blocking an ICE vehicle and surrounding it and trying to prevent it from passing and so forth, basically that’s not protected under the First Amendment,” he said. Still, he said he believes that prosecuting the protesters for felonies, especially for conspiracy, is “an extreme overreaction.” 

But with Walsh’s case, there’s also the matter that two criminal laws are at issue — impeding by force and conspiracy — and the burden is on the government to prove the statutes were violated, Heyman said.

Recent weeks have seen other cases out of the blitz fail to hold up in court. Last month, a federal judge dismissed charges against a woman shot by a Border Patrol agent after she allegedly rammed his vehicle in Brighton Park. And this month, a case was dismissed against Lakeview comedy club manager whom federal authorities had accused of slamming the door on the leg of a Border Patrol agent during an October immigration arrest.

For the higher charge against the Broadview protesters, prosecutors would have to show that they actually engaged in a conspiracy, Heyman said. That could be done in two ways, by demonstrating protesters had an outright agreement to conspire or had reached an implicit understanding they were going to commit a crime, according to Heyman. He noted the latter is vague and could be hard to prove.

Joshua Herman, who is representing Abughazaleh in the case, wrote in an email statement to the Tribune that the particular statute invoked by prosecutors in their conspiracy charge also does not require proof of an “overt act” — only an unlawful agreement.

“How these specific individuals,” he stated, “who were amongst a crowd of other (protesters) could spontaneously form such an unlawful agreement is a question the government will need to answer.”

He added that the statute cited is also rarely used and, to his knowledge, hasn’t been employed to prosecute protest activity in this way, despite it being on the books for well over a century.

Heyman said it’s unlikely Walsh and her co-defendants would receive the maximum sentence should they be convicted. But the case in itself, he added, conveys intimidation.

“The Trump administration is trying to send the message that they will tolerate no opposition to their immigration crackdown,” Heyman said.

He compared the case to prosecuting political opponents.

At a status hearing for the legal battle earlier this month, defense attorneys asked federal prosecutors to turn over White House communications related to a “selective prosecution” argument. 

Brad Thomson, Walsh’s attorney, contends that with this case, the government is prosecuting people for protesting together.

“That’s a real danger,” he said, “when you’re trying to have a society that has a robust discourse about the actions of the government.”

When the indictment against Walsh came to light, “it definitely rocked our community,” said Jack Sundstrom, a musician who’s performed with Songs for Liberation for the past six months. Sundstrom, like Walsh, performed with the collective in Broadview.

“It’s scary and terrifying, and it would be a lie to say that this isn’t something that keeps me up at night sometimes,” the 25-year-old Glenview resident said. But in his circle, he went on, there’s also “very much a sense of we’re going to keep doing this work.” He especially intends to keep organizing through music.

“As the song goes, the people united will never be defeated,” he said. “So I am going to continue doing what I do for as long as I can.”

Walsh hopes this doesn’t keep people from speaking out.

For her and her fiancé Joseph Ozment, it’s been a surreal few weeks since her charges were unsealed. But while scary, it’s been motivating, said Ozment, who’s also involved with Songs for Liberation.

“If they’re angry at us for this,” he said, “I think it’s for a good cause.”

They’ve also been reconciling what they’re facing with what they’re fighting for.

“I get to sleep in a warm bed,” Ozment said. “I know that … I’m not going to be whisked away in the middle of the night, and my family aren’t going to know where I am.”

The parallel, Walsh said, has only emboldened her more.

“It’s great that some of us have these rights,” she said, “and it’s awful that not all of us do. We need to keep fighting for that.”

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and JOSHUA GOODMAN

A Kansas tribe said it has walked away from a nearly $30 million federal contract to come up with preliminary designs for immigrant detention centers after facing a wave of online criticism.

The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation ‘s announcement Wednesday night came just over a week after the economic development leaders who brokered the deal with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were fired.

With some Native Americans swept up and detained in recent ICE raids, the deal was derided online as “disgusting” and “cruel.” Many in Indian Country also questioned how a tribe whose own ancestors were uprooted two centuries ago from the Great Lakes region and corralled on a reservation south of Topeka could participate in the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.

Tribal Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick nodded to the historic issues last week in a video address that called reservations “the government’s first attempts at detention centers.” In an update Wednesday, he announced that he was “happy to share that our Nation has successfully exited all third-party related interests affiliated with ICE.”

The Prairie Band Potawatomi has a range of businesses that provide health care management staffing, general contracting and even interior design. And Rupnick said in his latest address that tribal officials plan to meet in January about how to ensure “economic interests do not come into conflict with our values in the future.”

A tribal offshoot hired by ICE — KPB Services LLC — was established in April in Holton, Kansas, by Ernest C. Woodward Jr., a former naval officer who markets himself as a “go-to” adviser for tribes and affiliated companies seeking to land federal contracts.

The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation said in 2017 that Woodward’s firm advised it on its acquisition of another government contractor, Mill Creek LLC, which specializes in outfitting federal buildings and the military with office furniture and medical equipment.

Woodward also is listed as the chief operating officer of the Florida branch of Prairie Band Construction Inc., which was registered in September.

Attempts to locate Woodward were unsuccessful. A spokesperson for KPB said Woodward is no longer with the LLC but she declined to say whether he was terminated. Woodward did not respond to an email sent to another consulting firm he’s affiliated with, Virginia-based Chinkapin Partners LLC.

A spokesperson for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation said the tribe divested from KPB. While that company still has the contract, “Prairie Band no longer has a stake,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said Woodward is no longer with the tribe’s limited liability corporation, but she declined to say whether he was terminated.

The ICE contract initially was awarded in October for $19 million for unspecified “due diligence and concept designs” for processing centers and detention centers throughout the U.S., according to a one-sentence description of the work on the federal government’s real-time contracting database. It was modified a month later to increase the payout ceiling to $29.9 million.

Sole-source contracts above $30 million require additional justification under federal contracting rules.

Tribal leaders and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security haven’t responded to detailed questions about why the firm was selected for such a big contract without having to compete for the work as federal contracting normally requires. It’s also unclear what the Tribal Council knew about the contract.

“That process of internal auditing is really just beginning,” the tribal spokesperson said.

Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas, and Goodman from Miami.

Immigration enforcement in the United States has escalated sharply this year. Under the Biden administration, the daily number of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) peaked at just under 40,000. In President Trump’s second term, that number has surged to more than 65,000.

A striking majority of those detainees — nearly three-quarters — have no criminal convictions.

Michigan has felt this shift acutely. Longtime residents with work authorization, U.S.-citizen children, and active immigration cases are increasingly being detained. One of them is Ernesto Cuevas Enciso.

Who Ernesto is

Ernesto came to the United States from Mexico in 1995. He was three years old. His baby sister, Miriam, was one. They grew up in Detroit one grade apart, sharing classrooms, milestones, and daily life.

As an adult, Ernesto became a DACA recipient. That protection was later revoked when prior, nonviolent misdemeanors surfaced during a renewal screening—a common outcome even for minor offenses from many years earlier.

Today, Ernesto has legal work authorization through a different process and is pursuing a marriage-based green card application. He is a construction worker, a husband, and a father to a one-year-old daughter.

Arrest in Ypsilanti

Last week, Ernesto and another construction worker were near a job site in Ypsilanti when an unmarked vehicle approached. ICE detained both men.

Ernesto is now being held more than three hours from home at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin — currently the largest immigration detention facility in the Midwest.

Operated by the private prison company GEO Group, North Lake has been the subject of repeated concerns from families, attorneys, and civil-rights groups, who describe cold temperatures, limited access to medical care, and difficulty contacting legal counsel. ICE has disputed these claims, saying the facility meets federal standards.

Ernesto is awaiting an immigration hearing on December 17.

Family and lawmakers call for his release

Ernesto’s family and several Michigan lawmakers are urging ICE to release him on bond. They describe him as not a safety risk, a man who has been following the legal process, supporting his family, and working toward lawful permanent residency.

His sister, Miriam Stone, spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about the impact of this detention on their family and why they believe Ernesto should come home while his case proceeds.

What comes next

To understand the legal and policy context behind Ernesto’s case and why so many longtime Michigan residents are being detained this year, The Metro also spoke with Christine Suave of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, who explains the legal landscape and what options remain for someone in Ernesto’s position, and State Sen. Stephanie Chang, who discusses what Michigan lawmakers can and cannot do in response to federal immigration enforcement decisions.

More: Congressman Tom Barrett works with White House to release Michigander in ICE custody

ICE response

The Metro contacted Detroit’s office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We asked why they detained Ernesto, given his legal work authorization and his pending marriage-based green card, and if ICE considers a person with two nonviolent misdemeanors, which occurred over a decade ago, to fall within its priority categories of enforcement.

The agency has not yet responded.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

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The post The Metro: They came to America as toddlers, decades later one is detained by ICE appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

Aggressive immigration enforcement has intensified nationwide. As of early this month, more than 200,000 people had been arrested by ICE agents, including about 75,000 with no criminal record at all.

Lue Yang doesn’t technically fit into this context. But his case is close.

He was born in a Thai refugee camp after his family fled Laos. The Hmong refugee has lived in Michigan since he was 8 months old. While he is here legally, Yang previously had a 1997 criminal conviction, which was expunged in Michigan, but isn’t recognized by federal immigration law.

That resulted in ICE agents arresting Yang in July at his work. He was in prison until last week when he was released with the help of Michigan Republican Congressman Tom Barrett. 

More: They came to America as toddlers. Decades later, ICE detains one. The other fights for him

Why did Congressman Barrett help free Lue Yang? And, what was the process like for getting someone out of ICE detention?

Congressman Barrett joined The Metro to discuss that and more.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today »

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The post The Metro: Congressman Tom Barrett works with White House to release Michigander in ICE custody appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By GISELA SALOMON, Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy split more than 5,000 children from their families at the Mexico border during his first term.

Border crossings sit at a record low nearly a year into his second administration and a new wave of immigration enforcement is dividing families inside the U.S.

Federal officials and their local law enforcement partners are detaining tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants. Detainees are moved repeatedly, then deported, or held in poor conditions for weeks or months before asking to go home.

The federal government was holding an average of more than 66,000 people in November, the highest on record.

During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at the border and authorities struggled to find children in a vast shelter system because government computer systems weren’t linked. Now parents inside the United States are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from their families during prolonged detention. Or, they choose to have their children remain in the U.S. after an adult is deported, many after years or decades here.

The Trump administration and its anti-immigration backers see “unprecedented success” and Trump’s top border adviser Tom Homan told reporters in April that “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”

Three families separated by migration enforcement in recent months told The Associated Press that their dreams of better, freer lives had clashed with Washington’s new immigration policy and their existence is anguished without knowing if they will see their loved ones again.

For them, migration marked the possible start of permanent separation between parents and children, the source of deep pain and uncertainty.

A family divided between Florida and Venezuela

Antonio Laverde left Venezuela for the U.S. in 2022 and crossed the border illegally, then requested asylum.

He got a work permit and a driver’s license and worked as an Uber driver in Miami, sharing homes with other immigrants so he could send money to relatives in Venezuela and Florida.

Laverde’s wife Jakelin Pasedo and their sons followed him from Venezuela to Miami in December 2024. Pasedo focused on caring for her sons while her husband earned enough to support the family. Pasedo and the kids got refugee status but Laverde, 39, never obtained it and as he left for work one early June morning, he was arrested by federal agents.

Pasedo says it was a case of mistaken identity by agents hunting for a suspect in their shared housing. In the end, she and her children, then 3 and 5, remember the agents cuffing Laverde at gunpoint.

“They got sick with fever, crying for their father, asking for him,” Pasedo said.

Laverde was held at Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in Pompano Beach, Florida. In September, after three months detention, he asked to return to Venezuela.

Pasedo, 39, however, has no plans to go back. She fears she could be arrested or kidnapped for criticizing the socialist government and belonging to the political opposition.

She works cleaning offices and, despite all the obstacles, hopes to reunify with her husband someday in the U.S.

They followed the law

Yaoska’s husband was a political activist in Nicaragua, a country tight in the grasp of autocratic married co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

She remembers her husband getting death threats and being beaten by police when he refused to participate in a pro-government march. Yaoska spoke on condition of anonymity and requested the same for her husband to protect him from the Nicaraguan government.

The couple fled Nicaragua for the U.S. with their 10-year-old son in 2022, crossing the border and getting immigration parole. Settling down in Miami, they applied for asylum and had a second son, who has U.S. citizenship. Yaoska is now five months pregnant with their third child.

In late August, Yaoska, 32, went to an appointment at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her family accompanied her. Her husband, 35, was detained and failed his credible fear interview, according to a court document.

Yaoska was released under 24-hour supervision by a GPS watch that she cannot remove. Her husband was deported to Nicaragua after three months at the Krome Detention Center, the United States’ oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse.

Yaoska now shares family news with her husband by phone. The children are struggling without their father, she said.

“It’s so hard to see my children like this. They arrested him right in front of them,” Yaoska said, her voice trembling.

They don’t want to eat and are often sick. The youngest wakes up at night asking for him.

“I’m afraid in Nicaragua,” she said. “But I’m scared here too.”

Yaoska said her work authorization is valid until 2028 but the future is frightening and uncertain.

“I’ve applied to several job agencies, but nobody calls me back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

He was detained by local police, then deported

Edgar left Guatemala more than two decades ago. Working construction, he started a family in South Florida with Amavilia, a fellow undocumented Guatemalan migrant.

The arrival of their son brought them joy.

“He was so happy with the baby — he loved him,” said Amavilia, 31. “He told me he was going to see him grow up and walk.”

But within a few days, Edgar was detained on a 2016 warrant for driving without a license in Homestead, the small agricultural city where he lived in South Florida.

She and her husband declined to provide their last names because they are worried about repercussion from U.S. immigration officials.

Amavilia expected his release within 48 hours. Instead, Edgar, who declined to be interviewed, was turned over to immigration officials and moved to Krome.

“I fell into despair. I didn’t know what to do,” Amavilia said. “I can’t go.”

Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.

After Edgar’s detention, Amavilia couldn’t pay the $950 rent for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For the first three months, she received donations from immigration advocates.

Today, breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes up at 3 a.m. to cook lunches she sells for $10 each.

She walks with her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then spends afternoons selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas door to door with her two children.

Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not seek asylum or any type of legal status. She said her daughter grows anxious around police. She urges her to stay calm, smile and walk with confidence.

“I’m afraid to go out, but I always go out entrusting myself to God,” she said. “Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful.”

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreigners who are allowed to come to the United States without a visa could soon be required to submit information about their social media, email accounts and extensive family history to the Department of Homeland Security before being approved for travel.

The notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register said Customs and Border Protection is proposing collecting five years worth of social media information from travelers from select countries who do not have to get visas to come to the U.S. The Trump administration has been stepping up monitoring of international travelers and immigrants.

The announcement refers to travelers from more than three dozen countries who take part in the Visa Waiver Program and submit their information to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, which automatically screens them and then approves them for travel to the U.S. Unlike visa applicants, they generally do not have to go into an embassy or consulate for an interview.

DHS administers the program, which currently allows citizens of roughly 40 mostly European and Asian countries to travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for three months without visas.

The announcement also said that CBP would start requesting a list of other information, including telephone numbers the person has used over the past five years or email addresses used over the past decade. Also sought would be metadata from electronically submitted photos, as well as extensive information from the applicant’s family members, including their places of birth and their telephone numbers.

The application that people are now required to fill out to take part in ESTA asks for a more limited set of questions such as parents’ names and current email address.

The public has 60 days to comment on the proposed changes before they go into effect, the notice said.

CBP officials did not immediately respond to questions about the new rules.

The announcement did not say what the administration was looking for in the social media accounts or why it was asking for more information.

But the agency said it was complying with an executive order that Republican President Donald Trump signed in January that called for more screening of people coming to the U.S. to prevent the entry of possible national security threats.

Travelers from countries that are not part of the Visa Waiver Program system are already required to submit their social media information, a policy that dates back to the first Trump administration. The policy remained during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.

But citizens from visa waiver countries were not obligated to do so.

Since January, the Trump administration has stepped up checks of immigrants and travelers, both those trying to enter the U.S. as well as those already in the country. Officials have tightened visa rules by requiring that applicants set all of their social media accounts to public so that they can be more easily scrutinized and checked for what authorities view as potential derogatory information. Refusing to set an account to public can be considered grounds for visa denial, according to guidelines provided by the State Department.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services now considers whether an applicant for benefits, such as a green card, “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused” anti-American, terrorist or antisemitic views.

The heightened interest in social media screening has drawn concern from immigration and free speech advocates about what the Trump administration is looking for and whether the measures target people critical of the administration in an infringement of free speech rights.

By Jonathan Shorman, Stateline.org

Four Republican states have agreed to help the Trump administration gain access to state driver’s license data through a nationwide law enforcement computer network as part of the administration’s hunt for alleged noncitizen voters.

The Trump administration said as recently as October that federal officials wanted to obtain driver’s license records through the network.

The commitment from officials in Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio comes as part of a settlement agreement filed on Friday in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit was originally brought by the states last year alleging the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to help states verify voter eligibility.

The settlement, between the states and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, requires the federal department to continue its development of a powerful citizenship verification program known as SAVE. Earlier this year, federal officials repurposed SAVE into a program capable of scanning millions of state voter records for instances of noncitizen registered voters.

In return, the states have agreed to support Homeland Security’s efforts to access the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, an obscure computer network that typically allows law enforcement agencies to search driver’s license records across state lines. Nlets — as the system is known — lets police officers easily look up the driving records of out-of-state motorists.

The Trump administration and some Republican election officials have promoted the changes to SAVE as a useful tool to identify potential noncitizen voters, and Indiana had already agreed to provide voter records. Critics, including some Democrats, say the Trump administration is building a massive database of U.S. residents that President Donald Trump or a future president could use for spying or targeting political enemies.

Stateline reported last week, before the settlement agreement was filed in court, that Homeland Security publicly confirmed it wants to connect Nlets to SAVE.

A notice published Oct. 31 in the Federal Register said driver’s licenses are the most widely used form of identification, and that by working with states and national agencies, including Nlets, “SAVE will use driver’s license and state identification card numbers to check and confirm identity information.”

A federal official also previously told a virtual meeting of state election officials in May that Homeland Security was seeking “to avoid having to connect to 50 state databases” and wanted a “simpler solution,” such as Nlets, according to government records published by the transparency group American Oversight.

The new settlement lays out the timeline for how the Trump administration could acquire the four states’ records.

Within 90 days of the execution of the agreement, the four states may provide Homeland Security with 1,000 randomly selected driver’s license records from their state for verification as part of a quality improvement process for SAVE.

According to the agreement, the states that provide the records will “make best efforts to support and encourage DHS’s efforts to receive and have full use of state driver’s license records from the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System” and state driver’s license agencies.

The language in the agreement is open-ended and doesn’t make clear whether the pledge to help Homeland Security obtain access to Nlets is limited to drivers from those four states or is intended to require the states to help the agency acquire the records of drivers nationwide.

An agreement to help

The agreement could pave the way for Republican officials in other states to provide access to license data.

Nlets is a nonprofit organization that facilitates data sharing among law enforcement agencies across state lines. States decide what information to make available through Nlets, and which agencies can access it. That means the four states could try to influence peers to share Nlets data with the Trump administration.

“They’re not just talking about driver’s license numbers, they’re talking about the driver’s records. What possible reason would DHS have in an election or voting context — or any context whatsoever — for obtaining the ‘full use of state driver’s license records,’” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, said in a statement to Stateline that the settlement agreement provides another layer of election integrity and protection as officials seek to ensure only eligible voters are registered. He didn’t directly address questions about Nlets access.

“The SAVE program provides us with critical information, but we must also continue to utilize information from other state and federal partners to maintain clean and accurate lists,” Pate said in the statement.

Two weeks before the Nov. 5, 2024, election, Pate issued guidance to Iowa county auditors to challenge the ballots of 2,176 registered voters who were identified by the secretary of state’s office as potential noncitizens. The voters had reported to the state Department of Transportation or another government entity that they were not U.S. citizens in the past 12 years and went on to register to vote, according to the guidance.

In March, Pate said his office gained access to the SAVE database and found 277 of those people were confirmed to not have U.S. citizenship — just under 12% of the individuals identified as potential noncitizens.

Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — the agency under Homeland Security that oversees SAVE — told Stateline last week that USCIS was committed to “eliminating barriers to securing the nation’s electoral process.”

“By allowing states to efficiently verify voter eligibility, we are reinforcing the principle that America’s elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens,” Tragesser said in a statement.

The SAVE program — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. In the past, SAVE could search only one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches; federal officials in May also connected the program to Social Security data.

“It’s a potentially dangerous mix to put driver’s license and Social Security number and date of birth information out there … where we really don’t know yet how and when and where it’s going to be used,” Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon said in an interview on Monday.

Democratic states object

As the Trump administration has encouraged states to use SAVE, the Justice Department has also demanded states provide the department with unredacted copies of their voter rolls. The Trump administration has previously confirmed the Justice Department is sharing voter information with Homeland Security.

The Justice Department has sued six, mostly Democratic, states for refusing to turn over the data. Those lawsuits remain pending.

On Monday, 12 state secretaries of state submitted a 29-page public comment, in response to SAVE’s Federal Register notice, criticizing the overhaul. The secretaries wrote that while Homeland Security claims the changes make the program an effective tool for verifying voters, the modifications are “likely to degrade, not enhance” states’ efforts to ensure free, fair and secure elections.

“What the modified system will do … is allow the federal government to capture sensitive data on hundreds of millions of voters nationwide and distribute that information as it sees fit,” the secretaries wrote.

The secretaries of state of California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington signed on to the comment.

The settlement agreement purports to make this year’s changes to SAVE legally binding.

The agreement asks that a federal court retain jurisdiction over the case for 20 years for the purposes of enforcing it — a move that in theory could make it harder for a future Democratic president to reverse the changes to SAVE.

But Becker, of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he doesn’t expect the settlement agreement would make it more difficult for a future administration to undo the overhaul.

“Should a different administration come in that disagrees with this approach,” Becker said, “I would expect that they would almost certainly completely change how the system operates and how the states can access it and what data the federal government procures.”

Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter Robin Opsahl contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Since last week’s shooting of two National Guard members in the nation’s capital by a suspect who is an Afghan national, the Trump administration announced a flurry of policies aimed at making it harder for some foreigners to enter or stay in the country.

The administration said it was pausing asylum decisions, reexamining green card applications for people from countries “of concern” and halting visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. war effort.

Days before the shooting, a memo obtained by The Associated Press said the administration would review the cases of all refugees who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration.

The stepped up effort to restrict immigration has been harshly criticized by refugee advocates and those who work with Afghans, saying it amounts to collective punishment. Critics are also saying it is a waste of government resources to reopen cases that have already been processed.

The Trump administration says the new policies are necessary to ensure that those entering the country — or are already here — do not pose a security threat.

Here’s a look at the major changes announced over roughly a week:

All asylum decisions suspended

The director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said on the social platform X last week that asylum decisions will be paused “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”

Besides the post, no formal guidance has been put forward, so details remain scarce about the planned pause.

People seeking asylum must show to U.S. officials a threat of persecution if they were sent back to their home country, whether because of race, nationality or other grounds. If they’re granted asylum, they’re allowed to stay in the U.S. and eventually apply for a green card and then citizenship.

The Afghan suspect in the National Guard shooting was granted asylum earlier this year, according to advocate group #AfghanEvac.

The right to apply for asylum was already restricted by the Trump administration. In January, Trump issued an executive order essentially halting asylum for people who have come into the country through the southern border. Those cases generally go through immigration courts which are overseen by the Department of Justice.

USCIS oversees the asylum process for foreigners the government isn’t trying to remove via immigration courts. While Trump’s January order didn’t affect those cases, Edlow’s social media post suggests they will now come under additional scrutiny. Edlow did not say how long the agency’s pause on asylum decisions would last or what happens to people while those decisions are paused.

Caseloads have been rising for all types of asylum applications. The number of asylum cases at USCIS rose from 241,280 in 2022 to a record 456,750 in 2023, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.

A focus on countries ‘of concern’

On Nov. 27, Edlow said his agency was conducting a “full scale, rigorous reexamination” of every green card for people he said come from “every country of concern.”

“American safety is non negotiable,” Edlow said.

The agency said in a press release that same day that it was issuing new guidance that could make it tougher for people from 19 countries the administration considers “high-risk,” including Afghanistan, when they apply for immigration benefits such as applying for green cards or to stay in the U.S. longer.

The administration had already banned travel to the U.S. for citizens from 12 of those countries and restricted access for people from seven others.

No visas for Afghans

Other stricter stricter measures are also directed at Afghans.

On Nov. 26, USCIS said it would be suspending all “immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals.” That would affect Afghans already living in the U.S. who are applying for green cards or work permits or permission to bring family members to the U.S.

Separately, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced late Friday on X that the State Department has temporarily stopped issuing visas for all people traveling on Afghan passports.

The Trump administration had already severely limited travel and immigration from Afghanistan. The one avenue that had remained open was the Special Immigrant Visa program. Created by Congress, it allowed Afghans who closely supported the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan and faced retribution because of their work to emigrate to America.

But the State Department’s announcement means even that avenue is now closed.

According to #AfghanEvac, a group that advocates for Afghans coming to the U.S., about 180,000 Afghans were in the process of applying for the SIV program.

A review of refugees admitted under the Biden administration

Even before the shooting of two National Guard members, the Trump administration was planning a sweeping review of tens of thousands of immigrants who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration as part of the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program.

That program, first launched in 1980, oversees the process by which people fleeing persecution can come to the U.S. Refugees are distinct from people seeking asylum, although they meet the same criteria. Refugees have to apply and wait outside the U.S. to be admitted while asylum-seekers do so once they reach the U.S.

Trump suspended the refugee program the day he took office and only a trickle of refugees have been admitted since then, either white South Africans or people admitted as part of a lawsuit seeking to restart the refugee program.

Then on Nov. 21, Edlow said in a memo obtained by The Associated Press that the administration was going to review all refugees admitted to the U.S. during the Biden administration. That’s nearly 200,000 refugees.

Advocates say refugees already undergo rigorous vetting.

By HOLLY RAMER

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Massachusetts woman who was once engaged to the brother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt remains in ICE custody two weeks after being arrested on her way to pick up the son she shares with her former fiancé.

Bruna Ferreira, 33, was driving to her son’s school in New Hampshire on Nov. 12 when she was pulled over in Revere, Massachusetts, her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said Wednesday.

“She wasn’t told why she was detained,” he said. “She was bounced from Massachusetts, to New Hampshire, to Vermont, to Louisiana on this unconstitutional merry-go-round.”

Pomerleau said Ferreira’s 11-year-old son lives with her former fiancé, Michael Leavitt, in New Hampshire, but they have shared custody and maintained a co-parenting relationship for many years since their engagement broke off.

“She was detained for no reason at all. She’s not dangerous. She’s not a flight risk. She’s not a criminal illegal alien,” he said. “She’s a business owner who pays taxes and has a child who was wondering where mommy was after school two weeks ago.”

Michael Leavitt did not respond to a message sent to his workplace. The White House press secretary declined comment. Karoline Leavitt grew up in New Hampshire, and made an unsuccessful run for Congress from the state in 2022 before becoming Trump’s spokesperson for his 2024 campaign and later joining him at the White House.

Pomerleau said his client was 2 or 3 when she and her family came to the U.S. from Brazil, and she later enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Obama-era policy that shields immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. He said she was in the process of applying for a green card.

The Department of Homeland Security said Ferreira entered the U.S. on a tourist visa that required her to leave in 1999. A department spokesperson said Ferreira had a previous arrest for battery, an allegation her attorney denied.

An online search of court cases in several Massachusetts locations where she has lived found no record of such a charge.

“They’re claiming she has some type of criminal record we’ve seen nowhere. Show us the proof,” Pomerleau said. “She would’ve been deported years ago if that was true. And yet, here she is in the middle of this immigration imbroglio.”

A DHS spokesperson confirmed Ferreira is being held in Louisiana.

President Donald Trump’s efforts to broadly reshape immigration policy have included changing the approach to DACA recipients. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin recently issued a statement saying that people “who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are not automatically protected from deportations. DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”

By DAVID RISING, Associated Press

BANGKOK (AP) — Rights groups on Tuesday slammed the Trump administration’s decision to end protected status for Myanmar citizens due to the country’s “notable progress in governance and stability,” even though it remains mired in a bloody civil war and the head of its military regime faces possible U.N. war crimes charges.

In her announcement Monday ending temporary protection from deportation for citizens of Myanmar, also known as Burma, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem cited the military’s plans for “free and fair elections” in December and “successful ceasefire agreements” as among the reasons for her decision.

“The situation in Burma has improved enough that it is safe for Burmese citizens to return home,” she said in a statement.

The military under Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power from democratically-elected Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021 and is seeking to add a sheen of international legitimacy to its government with the upcoming elections. But with Suu Kyi in prison and her party banned, most outside observers have denounced the elections as a sham.

“Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem is treating those people just like her family’s dog that she famously shot down in cold blood because it misbehaved — if her order is carried out, she will literally be sending them back to prisons, brutal torture, and death in Myanmar,” Phil Robertson, the director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates, said in a statement.

“Secretary Noem is seriously deluded if she thinks the upcoming elections in Myanmar will be even remotely free and fair, and she is just making things up when she claims non-existent ceasefires proclaimed by Myanmar’s military junta will result in political progress.”

The military takeover sparked a national uprising with fierce fighting in many parts of the country, and pro-democracy groups and other forces have taken over large swaths of territory.

The military government has stepped up activity ahead of the election to retake areas controlled by opposition forces, with airstrikes killing scores of civilians.

In its fight, the military has been accused of the indiscriminate use of landmines, the targeting of schools, hospitals and places of worship in its attacks, and the use of civilians as human shields.

An arrest warrant was also requested last year for Min Aung Hlaing by International Criminal Court prosecutors accusing him of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority before he seized power.

The shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, established by elected lawmakers who were barred from taking their seats after the military took power in 2021, said it was saddened by Homeland Security’s decision.

NUG spokesperson Nay Phone Latt said the military is conducting forced conscription, attacking civilians on a daily basis, and that the elections were excluding any real opposition and would not be accepted by anybody.

“The reasons given for revoking TPS do not reflect the reality in Myanmar,” Nay Phone Latt told The Associated Press.

In her statement, Noem said her decision to remove the “TPS” protection was made in consultation with the State Department, though its latest report on human rights in Myanmar cites “credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings; disappearances; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest or detention.”

And the State Department’s latest travel guidance for Americans is to avoid the country completely.

“Do not travel to Burma due to armed conflict, the potential for civil unrest, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, poor health infrastructure, land mines and unexploded ordnance, crime, and wrongful detentions,” the guidance reads.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 30,000 people have been arrested for political reasons since the military seized power, and 7,488 have been killed.

Still, Homeland Security said that “the secretary determined that, overall, country conditions have improved to the point where Burmese citizens can return home in safety,” while adding that allowing them to remain temporarily in the U.S. is “contrary to the national interest.”

John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said that “extensive reporting on Myanmar contradicts almost every assertion” in the Homeland Security statement.

The decision could affect as many as 4,000 people, he said.

“Homeland Security’s misstatements in revoking TPS for people from Myanmar are so egregious that it is hard to imagine who would believe them,” he said in a statement.

“Perhaps no one was expected to.”

Months after federal officials demanded voter data from Colorado and several other states, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and several peers are trying to determine what exactly the Trump administration is doing with the data.

“As Secretaries of State and chief election officials of our respective states, we write to express our immense concern with recent reporting that the Department of Justice has shared voter data with the Department of Homeland Security, and to seek clarity on whether DOJ and DHS actively misled election officials regarding the uses of voter data,” Griswold and nine other secretaries of state wrote in a letter sent Tuesday morning.

It was addressed to Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, and Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary.

Bondi’s Justice Department sent letters to Colorado and other states in the spring asking for voter rolls and, in some cases, it has sought more detailed data, including partial social security numbers and birth dates.

The state officials’ new letter asks Bondi and Noem whether the voter rolls were shared with Noem’s department, which has served as the tip of the spear in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, or any others. The secretaries of state who signed on are all Democrats.

Colorado provided some of the information requested by the Justice Department as required by law, Griswold said in an interview Monday. Other states, particularly those tasked with turning over more extensive voter data, refused; six of them have since been sued by the federal government.

Griswold said federal officials had provided shifting answers on whether the Homeland Security Department had been given access to the data that had been turned over to the DOJ, including from Colorado.

Heather Honey, the agency’s deputy assistant secretary for election integrity, told the secretaries of state in September that DHS hadn’t received or asked for the data, according to the secretaries’ letter. But the next day, the agency confirmed to Stateline that it was collaborating with the Justice Department to “scrub aliens from voter rolls.”

Six weeks later, on Halloween, the agency posted an administrative update indicating it was expanding a tool — used previously to ensure federal benefits don’t go to immigrants without proper legal status — to check voting rolls.

“We would like the attorney general and the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to explain what they’re doing collecting mass voter data on American voters,” Griswold said. “It also looks like the DOJ or DHS misled secretaries of state.”

Attempts to reach both federal departments for comment Tuesday were not successful.

Griswold said some of her staff members also had a brief conversation with officials from the Justice Department’s criminal division earlier this summer. The federal officials asked if Colorado election officials had a way to report election crimes to the state attorney general, Griswold’s office said. State officials replied that they did, and the conversation ended.

The state officials request a response from Bondi and Noem by Dec. 1.

In addition to Colorado, the secretaries of state from California, Minnesota, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Maine, Vermont, Oregon and Washington also signed the letter.

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, KFF Health News

In July, federal immigration agents took Milagro Solis-Portillo to Glendale Memorial Hospital just outside Los Angeles after she suffered a medical emergency while being detained. They didn’t leave.

For two weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractors sat guard in the hospital lobby 24 hours a day, working in shifts to monitor her movements, her attorney Ming Tanigawa-Lau said.

ICE later transferred the Salvadoran woman to Anaheim Global Medical Center, against her doctor’s orders and without explanation, her attorney said. There, Tanigawa-Lau said, ICE agents were allowed to stay in Solis-Portillo’s hospital room round-the-clock, listening to what should have been private conversations with providers. Solis-Portillo told her attorney that agents pressured her to say she was well enough to leave the hospital, telling her she wouldn’t be able to speak to her family or her attorney until she complied.

“She described it to me as feeling like she was being tortured,” Tanigawa-Lau said.

Legal experts say ICE agents can be in public areas of a hospital, such as a lobby, and can accompany already-detained patients as they receive care, illustrating the scope of federal authority. Detained patients, however, have rights and can try to advocate for themselves or seek legal recourse.

Earlier this year, California set aside $25 million to fund legal services for immigrants, and some local jurisdictions — including Orange County, Long Beach, and San Francisco— have put money toward legal aid efforts. The California Department of Social Services lists some legal defense nonprofits that have received funds.

Sophia Genovese, a supervising attorney and clinical teaching fellow at Georgetown Law, said law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, can guard and even restrain a person in their custody who is receiving health care, but they must follow constitutional and health privacy laws regardless of the person’s immigration status. Under those laws, patients can ask to speak with medical providers in private and to seek and speak confidentially with legal counsel, she said.

“ICE should be stationed outside of the room or outside of earshot during any communication between the patient and their doctor or medical provider,” Genovese said, adding that the same applies to a patient’s communication with lawyers. “That’s what they’re supposed to do.”

ICE guidelines

When it comes to communication and visits, ICE’s standards state that detainees should have access to a phone and be able to receive visits from family and friends, “within security and operational constraints.” However, these guidelines are not enforceable, Genovese said.

If immigration agents arrest someone without a warrant, they must tell them why they’ve been detained and generally can’t hold them for more than 48 hours without making a custody determination. A federal judge recently granted a temporary restraining order in a case in which a man named Bayron Rovidio Marin was monitored by immigration agents in a Los Angeles hospital for 37 days without being charged and was registered under a pseudonym.

In the past, perceived violations by agents could be reported to ICE leadership at local field offices, to the agency’s headquarters, or to an oversight body, Genovese said. But earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security cut staffing at ombudsman offices that investigate civil rights complaints, saying they “obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles.”

The assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, said that agents arrested Marin for being in the country illegally and that he admitted his lack of legal status to ICE agents. She said agents took him to the hospital after he injured his leg while trying to evade federal officers during a raid. She said officers did not prevent him from seeing his family or from using the phone.

“All detainees have access to phones they can use to contact their families and lawyers,” she said.

McLaughlin said the temporary restraining order was issued by an “activist” judge. She did not address questions about staffing cuts at the ombudsman offices.

DHS also said Solis-Portillo was in the country illegally. The department said she had been removed from the United States twice and arrested for the crimes of false identification, theft, and burglary.

“ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously,” McLaughlin said. “It is a long-standing practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. This includes access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”

Protections in California

Anaheim Global Medical Center did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Dignity Health, which operates Glendale Memorial Hospital, said it “cannot legally restrict law enforcement or security personnel from being present in public areas which include the hospital lobby/waiting area.”

California enacted a law in September that prohibits medical establishments from allowing federal agents without a valid search warrant or court order into private areas, including places where patients receive treatment or discuss health matters. But many of the most high-profile news reports of immigration agents at health care facilities have involved detained patients brought in for care.

Erika Frank, vice president of legal counsel for the California Hospital Association, said hospitals have always had law enforcement, including federal agents, bring in people they’ve detained who need medical attention.

Hospitals will defer to law enforcement on whether a patient needs to be monitored at all times, according to association spokesperson Jan Emerson-Shea. If law enforcement officers overhear medical information about a patient while they’re in the hospital, it doesn’t constitute a patient-privacy violation, she added.

“This is no different, legally, from a patient or visitor overhearing information about another patient in a nearby bed or emergency department bay,” Emerson-Shea said in a statement.

She didn’t address whether patients can demand privacy with providers and attorneys, and she said hospitals don’t tell family and friends about the detained patient’s location, for safety reasons.

Sandy Reding, who is president of the California Nurses Association and visited the Glendale facility when Solis-Portillo was there, said nurses and patients were frightened to see masked immigration agents in the hospital’s lobby. She said she saw them sitting behind a registration desk where they could hear people discuss private health information.

“Hospitals used to be a sanctuary place, and now they’re not,” she said. “And it seems like ICE has just been running rampant.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote Nov. 18 on a proposal to provide more protections for detainees at county-operated health facilities. These include limiting the ability of immigration officials to hide patients’ identities, allowing patients to consent to the release of information to family members and legal counsel, and directing staff to insist immigration agents leave the room at times to protect patient privacy. The county would also defend employees who try to uphold its policies.

Solis-Portillo’s lawyer, Tanigawa-Lau, said her client ultimately decided to self-deport to El Salvador rather than fight her case, because she felt she couldn’t get the medical care she needed in ICE custody.

“Even though Milagro’s case is really terrible, I’m glad that there’s more awareness now about this issue,” Tanigawa-Lau said.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Jonathan Shorman, Stateline.org

A day after President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a new directive to its agents: Arrests at courthouses, restricted under the Biden administration, were again permissible.

In Connecticut, a group of observers who keep watch on ICE activity in and around Stamford Superior Court have since witnessed a series of arrests. In one high-profile case in August, federal agents pursued two men into a bathroom.

“Is it an activity you want to be interfering with, people fulfilling their duty when they’re called to court and going to court? For me, it’s insanity,” said David Michel, a Democratic former state representative in Connecticut who helps observe courthouse activity.

Fueled by the Stamford uproar, Connecticut lawmakers last week approved restrictions on civil arrests and mask-wearing by federal law enforcement at state courthouses. And on Monday, a federal judge tossed a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice that had sought to block similar restrictions in New York.

They are the latest examples of a growing number of Democratic states, and some judges, pushing back against ICE arrests in and around state courthouses. State lawmakers and other officials worry the raids risk keeping people from testifying in criminal trials, fighting evictions or seeking restraining orders against domestic abusers.

The courthouse arrests mark an intensifying clash between the Trump administration and Democratic states that pits federal authority against state sovereignty. Sitting at the core of the fight are questions about how much power states have to control what happens in their own courts and the physical grounds they sit on.

In Illinois, lawmakers approved a ban on civil immigration arrests at courthouses in October. In Rhode Island, lawmakers plan to again push for a ban after an earlier measure didn’t advance in March. Connecticut lawmakers were codifying limits imposed by the state Supreme Court chief justice in September. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to sign the bill.

States that are clamping down on ICE continue to allow the agency to make criminal arrests, as opposed to noncriminal civil arrests. Many people arrested and subsequently deported are taken on noncriminal, administrative warrants. As of Sept. 21, 71.5% of ICE detainees had no criminal convictions, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization.

Some states, such as New York, already have limits on immigration enforcement in courthouses that date back to the first Trump administration, when ICE agents also engaged in courthouse arrests. New York’s Protect Our Courts Act, in place since 2020, prohibits civil arrests of people at state and local courthouses without a judicial warrant. The law also applies to people traveling to and from court, extending protections beyond courthouse grounds.

“One of the cornerstones of our democracy is open access to the courts. When that access is denied or chilled, all of us are made less safe and less free,” said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group that works to provide legal support to immigrants, people of color and low-income individuals.

But in addition to challenging the New York law, the Justice Department is prosecuting a Wisconsin state judge, alleging she illegally helped a migrant avoid ICE agents.

“We aren’t some medieval kingdom; there are no legal sanctuaries where you can hide and avoid the consequences for breaking the law,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Stateline. “Nothing in the constitution prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them.”

Some Republican lawmakers oppose efforts to limit ICE arrests in and near courthouses, arguing state officials should stay out of the way of federal law enforcement. The Ohio Senate in June passed a bill that would prohibit public officials from interfering in immigration arrests or prohibiting cooperation with ICE; the move came after judges in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, imposed restrictions on civil arrests in courthouses.

“The United States is a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of law and order. To have a civilized society, laws must be respected, this includes immigration laws,” Ohio Republican state Sen. Kristina Roegner, the bill’s sponsor, said in a news release at the time.

Roegner didn’t respond to Stateline’s interview request. The legislation remains in a House committee.

Knowing where a target will be

Courthouses offer an attractive location for ICE to make immigration arrests, according to both ICE and advocates for migrants.

Court records and hearing schedules often indicate who is expected in the building on any given day. Administrative warrants don’t allow ICE to enter private homes without permission, but the same protections don’t apply in public areas, such as courthouses. And many people have a strong incentive to show up for court, knowing that warrants can potentially be issued for their arrest if they don’t.

“So in some respects, it’s easy pickings,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island.

In June, ICE arrested Pablo Grave de la Cruz at Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal in Cranston. A 36-year-old Rhode Island resident, he had come from Guatemala illegally as a teenager.

“They pulled up on him like he was a murderer or a rapist,” friend Brittany Donohue told the Rhode Island Current, which chronicled de la Cruz’s case. “He was leaving traffic court.”

An immigration judge has since granted de la Cruz permission to self-deport.

McLaughlin, the Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in her statement that allowing law enforcement to make arrests “of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense” — conserving law enforcement resources because officers know where a target will be. The department said the practice is safer for officers and the community, noting that individuals have gone through courthouse security.

Still, ICE’s directive on courthouse arrests sets some limits on the agency’s activity.

Agents “should, to the extent practicable” conduct civil immigration arrests in non-public areas of the courthouse and avoid public entrances. Actions should be taken “discreetly” to minimize disruption to court proceedings, and agents should generally avoid areas wholly dedicated to non-criminal proceedings, such as family court, the directive says.

Crucially, the directive says ICE can conduct civil immigration arrests “where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction.” In other words, the agency’s guidance directs agents to respect state and local bans on noncriminal arrests.

Trump administration court actions

But the Trump administration has also gone to court to try to overcome state-level restrictions.

The Justice Department sued in June over New York’s Protect Our Courts Act, arguing that it “purposefully shields dangerous aliens” from lawful detention. The department says the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, under which federal law supersedes state law.

New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James argued the state law doesn’t conflict with federal law and sought the lawsuit’s dismissal.

U.S. District Court Judge Mae D’Agostino, an appointee of President Barack Obama, on Monday granted James’ motion. The judge wrote that the “entire purpose” of the lawsuit was to allow the federal government to commandeer New York’s resources — such as court schedules and court security screening measures — to aid immigration enforcement, even though states cannot generally be required to help the federal government enforce federal law.

“Compelling New York to allow federal immigration authorities to reap the benefits of the work of state employees is no different than permitting the federal government to commandeer state officials directly in furtherance of federal objectives,” the judge wrote.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The department is also prosecuting Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan, who prosecutors allege helped a person living in the country illegally avoid ICE agents in April inside a Milwaukee courthouse by letting him exit a courtroom through a side door. (Agents apprehended the individual near the courthouse.) A federal grand jury indicted Dugan on a count of concealing an individual and a count of obstructing a proceeding.

In court documents, Dugan’s lawyers have called the prosecution “virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional.”

Dugan has pleaded not guilty, and a trial is set for December.

Lawmakers seek ‘order’ in courthouses

Rhode Island Democratic state Sen. Meghan Kallman is championing legislation that would generally ban civil arrests at courthouses. The measure received a hearing, but a legislative committee recommended further study.

Kallman hopes the bill will go further next year. The sense of urgency has intensified, she said, and more people now understand the consequences of what is happening.

“In order to create a system of law that is functioning and that encourages trust, we have to make those [courthouse] spaces safe,” she said.

Back in Connecticut, Democratic state Rep. Steven Stafstrom said his day job as a commercial litigator brings him into courthouses across the state weekly. Based on his conversations with court staff, other lawyers and senior administration within the judicial branch, he said “there’s a genuine fear, not just for safety, but for disruptions of orderly court processes in our courthouses.”

Some Connecticut Republicans have questioned whether a law that only pertains to civil arrests would prove effective. State Rep. Craig Fishbein, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, noted during floor debate that entering the United States without permission is a criminal offense — a misdemeanor for first-time offenders and a felony for repeat offenders. Because of that, he suggested the measure wouldn’t stop many courthouse arrests.

“The advocates think they’re getting no arrests in courthouses, but they’ve been sold a bill of goods,” he said.

Stafstrom, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said in response that he believed the legislation protects many people who are in the country illegally because that crime is often not prosecuted.

“All we’re asking is for ICE to recognize the need for order in our courthouses,” Stafstrom said.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Ben Strauss and María Luisa PaúlThe Washington Post

CHICAGO – As the Trump administration intensifies a nationwide mass deportation campaign, immigrant parents are scrambling to secure emergency caretakers for their children – flooding legal clinics and naming friends, acquaintances or teachers as temporary guardians.

A Chicago volunteer worker agreed to become a guardian for nine children, using an obscure state law that dates to the AIDS epidemic.

A teacher in Maine recently agreed to be an emergency guardian for one of her students if his parents, both of whom are undocumented, are deported.

And a business owner in Oregon ended up with temporary custody of her friend’s children for four months when the parents were both detained.

Fear of being separated from her son recently led Rosa, an Ecuadorian asylum seeker and single mom in Chicago, to search online for help with a question she never thought she’d face: What happens to my child if I get deported?

The search led her to information about short-term guardianship, or tutela temporal in Spanish, which allows parents to designate a trusted adult to temporarily care for their children under certain conditions without giving up parental rights. In Illinois, the four-page legal document is free and requires no lawyer or notary.

It gives people the authority to make decisions about education and medical needs if parents are unable to care for their children.

“I don’t know if I will come home from work any day; this is my plan,” Rosa said of the short-term guardianship agreement. (Like several others interviewed for this article, she spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation from the federal government.)

Across the country, the effects of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign have had a chilling effect on immigrant communities – both the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants and those here legally.

Perhaps nowhere has it been more pronounced than in Chicago, where law firms advertise services on Spanish language radio for parents in need of a plan for their kids if they get detained.

Sometimes parents are seeking help from U.S. citizens they’ve only recently met. Aleah Arundale, who helps a network of immigrants with necessities like food and rent money in Chicago, has made short-term guardianship arrangements for nine children from four families. “The greatest fear for them is: ‘What happens if I get taken?’” Arundale said. “They think I’m the best chance to get their kids back.”

There’s no data to quantify short-term guardianship arrangements since the requirements vary by state. But lawyers report they are being inundated. Clinics are popping up across the country, and one specialist said they usually see two or three cases per year but now receive hundreds of requests each week for information.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the surge of interest in guardianship agreements. The Trump administration has deported more than 400,000 people this year, DHS has said. It has also doubled the number of people detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. As of late September, ICE is holding nearly 60,000 people in custody. It’s unclear how many of those are parents.

The White House has said it is targeting criminals, but some of those who have been detained are asylum seekers, longtime residents, people with pending immigration cases or even U.S. citizens. A Syracuse University research group has found that more than 70 percent of those detained by ICE do not have criminal records.

At a time of heightened anxiety, some immigrants said guardianship planning has become one of the few things they can control. “It helps me breathe,” said one mother, an asylum seeker from Venezuela, who completed the Illinois form with Arundale. “And it took 10 minutes.”

– – –

Hundreds every week

Rosa arrived in Chicago four years ago. She cleans an office with a work permit, but a highly publicized federal immigration raid in her neighborhood sent her into a panic.

After Rosa learned about temporary guardianship, her church connected her with Rebekah Rashidfarokhi, an attorney and director of guardianship and immigration programs for children at Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, which offers pro bono representation.

The two met virtually this month to discuss the process.

Unlike adoption or more complicated guardianship procedures that require court approval, short-term guardianship in Illinois needs just the signatures of two consenting parties and two witnesses. Parents can revoke the arrangement at any time. It can last up to a year.

The form is helpful for enrolling a child in school or going to the doctor, Rashidfarokhi said, because it is recognized by state law. It has no federal authority, so it cannot be used to get a passport. (Several parents said that if they are deported they hoped it could also help make international travel and reuniting with their children easier.)

The guardianship does not kick in immediately but takes effect with a specified event. Rashidfarokhi instructed Rosa to be specific about the conditions: “In case I am detained by immigration.”

Rosa said she left Ecuador after her husband was abusing her and threatening her children. She has lived in fear in recent weeks, she said, but also knowing she must make logistical plans. She has been preparing documents, including proof of custody of her son after her divorce. She spoke to a woman, a dual American and Ecuadorian citizen, she met taking English classes at a community college to be her designated guardian. The woman agreed.

She has avoided talking too much about any of it with her 13-year-old son.

“He is confused about what is happening,” Rosa said. “But I am his mother, and I have to do it.”

Rashidfarokhi has been a family law attorney for two decades. Most years, she handles two or three short-term guardianship cases. Now, hundreds of people are requesting information every week, with families and community groups flooding her with requests for clinics and presentations. At one clinic earlier this year, 100 families showed up. (Rashidfarokhi said it’s difficult to quantify how many people fill out the form because many of the consultations she does now are virtual since so many people are afraid to leave their homes.)

Mayra Lira, an attorney with Public Counsel in Los Angeles, said she has seen similar demand for guardianship clinics in her city, where the Trump administration has also carried out immigration raids.

Lira described seeing parents make short-term guardianship plans as “dystopian,” adding that allegations of unlawful arrests and racial profiling have also brought green-card holders and U.S. citizens to the clinics.

“Everyone is afraid of being targeted,” she said.

– – –

‘We want people to know what to do’

The legal framework for Illinois’ short-term guardianship didn’t exist until the late 1980s. It was conceived of primarily to assist HIV-positive parents, many of them low-income, who were worried the state would assume custody of their kids if they died. It took several years of lobbying before Illinois amended its probate law.

“It was revolutionary at the time,” said Linda Coon, a lawyer who spearheaded the effort. “I knew it would help our clients but could never imagine it would be used by thousands of people today.”

Its uses have expanded over the years. During the early days of the pandemic, an executive order in New York state allowed medical workers to designate a temporary guardian. Several states – including Maryland and New York, as well as the District of Columbia – amended statutes during the first Trump administration to recognize immigration detention or deportation as an event that could give designated caregivers temporary parental rights. California passed a law last month that created a new short-term guardianship process for parents who could be detained or deported.

Today, guardianship conversations are happening in all types of settings, some not even planned by parents.

A teacher in Maine said she agreed to be a temporary guardian for one of her students after the parents broke down crying in a meeting over what might happen to their child if they were deported.

“I will do that every single time,” the teacher said. “I shouldn’t have to. I should just be able to teach my kids.”

Mimi Lettunich, an Oregon resident, took care of a friend’s four children after the family was detained by federal agents. (She has a pending U.S. visa and her children are U.S. citizens.) When Lettunich picked up the children, she was handed a coloring book with a note from their mother that said: “I will miss my babies. … I talked to them that they need to obey you.” The note also included a reminder for one of her kids’ upcoming orthodontist appointments.

Temporary guardianship allowed Lettunich to take the kids to doctor’s appointments and enroll them in a new school.

Lettunich’s friend was eventually released, and the two are now working on a handbook to help families facing the same circumstances. One of its strongest recommendations: arrange for short-term guardianship.

“We want people to know what to do,” Lettunich said. “Because you never think it’ll happen – until it does.”

A federal judge Wednesday ordered the release of video taken during an hourslong deposition given last week by U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino.

The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Public Media petitioned U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis to release the recordings, which were filed under seal as part of a lawsuit led by the Chicago Headline Club, a nonprofit journalism advocacy organization, and a consortium of other media groups. The journalism organizations allege federal immigration enforcement officials have systematically violated the constitutional rights of protesters and reporters during President Donald Trump’s mass deportation mission, which began in early September and shows no sign of slowing down.

Ellis, who issued a temporary restraining order last month, announced Thursday that she will put longer-term restrictions on federal agents’ use of chemical agents on crowds and provide enhanced protections for protesters and members of the media.

The released videos can be seen in their entirety on the Tribune’s YouTube channel, but here are some of the highlights:

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Chicago

Bovino, who is leading Trump’s immigration enforcement effort in the Chicago area, testified that he is leading roughly 220 U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents as part of the so-called Operation Midway Blitz. He said he reports directly to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

‘More than exemplary’

Asked by veteran Chicago civil rights attorney Locke Bowman if he stood by remarks he made to CBS that the use of force at the Broadview ICE facility has been “exemplary,” Bovino at first surprised everyone by saying, “No.”

“The uses of force have been more than exemplary,” Bovino clarified.

In placing longer-term restrictions Thursday, Ellis disagreed.

“The use of force shocks the conscience,” she said.

‘Violent rioters’

During the deposition, Bovino said he had not witnessed his agents using tear gas or pepper-spray balls against protesters in Broadview, but chemical agents were used against “violent rioters” and “assaultive subjects.”

Definition of a protester

When asked to define “protester,”  Bovino said it’s a person “exercising their constitutional rights to speak — to speak their opinion, to speak their mind in a peaceful fashion … in accordance with laws, rules and with the Constitution.”

“We get protesters on both sides of the issue. Sometimes they protest against, say, a Title 8 immigration enforcement mission, tell us they don’t like it, we shouldn’t be there, we need to go home, use very foul language oftentimes,” he said. “And then there’s also protesters on the other side of the issue that say ‘hey, you should be there. We’re glad you’re here. Continue to be here.’ So, I look at those as peaceful individuals exercising their right to, one, be there and, two, speak their mind. It’s freedom of assembly, freedom of speech.”

Bovino then rattled off a list of public actions he said his agents have experienced, actions he uses to draw a distinction between protesters and “violent rioters” or “assaultive subjects”: “Removing masks, kicking agents, grabbing agents’ groins, assisting and abetting prisoners from escaping, shooting fireworks, knifing and slashing tires with weapons, throwing rocks through windows of vehicles to hurt agents and/or detainees.”

‘Not a reportable use of force’

On the video, Bovino is asked about an Oct. 3 arrest he made involving a man protesting outside the Broadview facility. According to the complaint, Bovino ordered a man to move down the street after the man told him, “you love to be on television.” As the man started to move, the complaint states, Bovino “stepped across a barrier,” tackled the man and arrested him.

During the Nov. 4 deposition, Bovino said the arrest “was not a reportable use of force. I placed him under arrest. I didn’t tackle him.”

More about Bovino’s interaction with the protester

Bovino was asked about an encounter with the man, Scott Blackburn, who was protesting at Broadview. The lawyer and Bovino disagreed over whether he used force when he tackled the protester.

“He doesn’t like the fact that you are instructing him to move down,” the lawyer said to Bovino.

Bovino objected to the lawyer’s characterization, saying instead, “That individual is failing to follow instructions to vacate the area.”

The video shows Bovino tackling the protester. But Bovino characterized it a different way.

“I’m imploring Mr. Blackburn, or whoever that individual was, to comply with leaving the area and to comply with instructions,” Bovino said.

Asked if he was “making physical contact,” Bovino said he was. But he denied that it was a use of force, saying it was different than using deadly force or “open-hand strikes.”

But he disputed that he used force against the protester.

“The use of force was against me,” Bovino said.

The judge, however, said she did not believe Bovino’s testimony about force that his agents and he personally inflicted in incidents across the Chicago area.

“In one of the videos, Bovino obviously attacks and tackles the declarant, Mr. Blackburn, to the ground,” Ellis said. “But Mr. Bovino, despite watching this video (in his deposition) says that he never used force.”

Pastor struck in the head

In video taken at a protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, the Rev. David Black walks toward the building and appears to talk with someone on the roof. A fellow demonstrator offers Black a bullhorn, which the Presbyterian pastor appears to ignore.

Seconds later, Black begins dodging pepper-spray projectiles fired at him, as another protester lifts his shirt and dances a jig as if daring someone to shoot at him. Black initially takes a few steps back, then moves forward with his arms outstretched, looking up toward the building and talking.

On the video, pepper-spray balls can be seen striking the ground in front of Black. He is then struck in the right arm by one. He appears to try and turn away before he is struck again, this time in the head.

Other protesters quickly gather around him as he kneels or falls to the ground, the recording shows. Bystanders lift him and help spirit him away.

Struck again

On the video, Black returns to sidewalk in front of the detention center with a megaphone in hand. As he appears to speak to someone on the roof, pepper-spray balls are fired in his direction.

A protester appears to try to shield him with a sign, but it doesn’t work. Black is hit in the head again.

Bovino on the incident with Pastor Black

Bovino was asked about Rev. David Black, a Presbyterian pastor who was shot in the head by a federal agent. He declined to answer the question, which was framed as a hypothetical, saying he was “unable to comment on that use of force.”

Pressed further, Bovino said: “I don’t know what the use of force was here. I can’t make a judgment either way because I don’t know.”

By CLAUDIA LAUER, Associated Press

A U.S. Senate investigation has uncovered dozens of credible reports of medical neglect and poor conditions in immigration detention centers nationwide — with detainees denied insulin, left without medical attention for days and forced to compete for clean water — raising scrutiny about how the government oversees its vast detention system.

The report released by Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat from Georgia, is the second in a series of inquiries examining alleged human rights abuses in the immigration detention system. It builds on an August review that detailed mistreatment of children and pregnant women and draws from more than 500 reports of abuse and neglect collected between January and August.

The latest findings document more than 80 credible cases of medical neglect and widespread complaints of inadequate food and water. Senate investigators say that points to systemic failures in federal detention oversight.

The report cites accounts from detainees, attorneys, advocates, news reports and at least one Department of Homeland Security employee, describing delays in medical care that, in some cases, proved life-threatening. One detainee reportedly suffered a heart attack after complaining of chest pain for days without treatment. Others said inhalers and asthma medication were withheld, or that detainees waited weeks for prescriptions to be filled.

A Homeland Security staff member assigned to one detention site told investigators that “ambulances have to come almost every day,” according to the report.

Ossoff said the findings reflect a deeper failure of oversight within federal immigration detention.

“Americans overwhelmingly demand and deserve secure borders. Americans also overwhelmingly oppose the abuse and neglect of detainees,” Ossoff told The Associated Press. “Every human being is entitled to dignity and humane treatment. That is why I have for years investigated and exposed abuses in prisons, jails, and detention centers, and that is why this work will continue.”

The medical reports also detailed how a diabetic detainee went without glucose monitoring or insulin for two days and became delirious before medical attention was given and that it took months for another detainee to receive medication to treat gastrointestinal issues.

Expired milk, foul water, scant food are reported

The Senate investigation also identified persistent complaints about food and water, including evidence drawn from court filings, depositions and interviews. Detainees described meals too small for adults, milk that was sometimes expired, and water that smelled foul or appeared to make children sick. At one Texas facility, a teenager said adults were forced to compete with children for bottles of clean water when staff left out only a few at a time.

The Associated Press asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on the report’s findings multiple times Wednesday and Thursday, but the agency did not provide a response. The Homeland Security Department previously criticized Ossoff’s first report in August, saying the allegations of detainees being abused were false and accusing him of trying to “score political points.”

Attorneys for some of those detained at facilities across the country said they’ve seen some of the issues with medical care and food firsthand.

Stephanie Alvarez-Jones, a Southeast regional attorney for the National Immigration Project, said one of the organization’s clients was denied a prescribed medical device while being detained at Angola’s Camp J facility in Louisiana in the last two months. The man, in his 60s, experienced stroke-like symptoms, including partial paralysis, and was eventually taken to the hospital, where he was transferred to an intensive care unit for several days.

Doctors there prescribed him a walker to help him move during his recovery, but Alvarez-Jones said the detention staff would not let him have it when he first returned and placed him in a segregation cell.

“He still could not walk by himself,” she said. “He still had paralysis on his left side.” She added: “He was not able to get up and get his food, to shower by himself or to use the bathroom without assistance. So he had to lay in soiled bedsheets because he wasn’t able to get up.”

Alvarez-Jones said the guards had insinuated to the man that they believed he was faking his illness. He was eventually given the choice of staying in the segregation cell and being allowed a walker, or returning to the general detainee population. She said he’s been relying on the help of others in the general population to eat and use the bathroom as he recovers.

The Baltimore field office is examined

Amelia Dagen, a senior attorney with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, is working on a lawsuit against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations Baltimore Field Office as well as officials in charge of national immigration enforcement efforts.

Dagen said several of the organization’s clients have had to fight for access to medication at the Baltimore holding facility. Through the lawsuit, she said the government agency had to admit in the court record that it does not have a food vendor to provide three meals a day or any onsite medical staff at the facility that was initially only supposed to hold detainees for about 12 hours.

But since January and the various immigration enforcement actions, it’s much more likely that detainees are held for as much as a week in the Baltimore Hold Room.

“What we started hearing very quickly, maybe in February, was that the food they were being fed three times a day was incredibly inadequate,” Dagen said. “We would hear sometimes it would be a protein bar or sometimes just bread and water. There is very little nutritional value and very little variety. I mean, sometimes it was a military ration component, but just the rice and beans, not a full meal.”

Dagen said the detainees also have to ask for bottles of water and they aren’t always given. The ICE office has taken the stance that the sinks attached to the cell toilets are a continuous supply of water. But Dagen said the detainees complained the sink water has a bad taste.

“This is 100% a problem of their own making,” she said of the authorities. “These hold rooms were not used in this way prior to 2025. They are setting themselves these quotas, removing discretion to release people and trying to arrest numbers of people that are just impractical … fully knowing they don’t have the ability to hold these people.”

By Michael Smith, Alicia A. Caldwell, Myles Miller, Bloomberg News

The federal government is supercharging its use of local cops to hunt down immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally as part of an unprecedented effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to deport millions of people.

Some 10,500 local police, county sheriffs, state troopers, university law enforcement and even lottery investigators have been signed up to stop, arrest and detain undocumented immigrants. Nationwide data reviewed by Bloomberg show these officers, across 40 states, nabbed almost 3,000 people since Trump took office through the end of July. Florida keeps its own tally under the same program, and its deputized cops have arrested another 2,500 people since then.

Combined, that’s a small fraction of the total number of immigration arrests this year, but almost double the amount that deputized cops made in 2024 under President Joe Biden’s watch.

Local law enforcement usually doesn’t have the authority to enforce immigration rules, but a nearly 30-year-old program called 287(g) allows the federal government to grant immigration arrest power to agencies that sign on. Trump has overseen a dramatic expansion at the start of his second term, with the number of accords surging seven-fold to almost 1,100 by September.

It’s “a force multiplier,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said in an interview.

But among the local law-enforcement agencies, some have been much more enthusiastic participants than others. About three-fourths of the 330 participating police forces in Florida, by far the largest ICE partner after Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through a law requiring them to sign up, have made zero arrests months into their partnerships, the state’s data show. Officials frequently say that it isn’t a priority for officers focused on fighting violent crime, thwarting robberies and improving community relations.

In greater Miami, which has one of the largest concentrations of Latino immigrants in America, police and sheriff’s departments have made about two dozen immigration arrests since August.

“We have other priorities in this community that I’m focused on, and immigration is not one of them,” Gregory Tony, the Democratic sheriff of Broward County, north of Miami, said at a county budget committee meeting in June. “It’s not within our purview, it’s not within our responsibility, and I won’t participate in it.”

Tony’s comments led Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to threaten to remove the sheriff from office, citing the state law that requires police to use “best efforts to support” federal immigration agents. As of Oct. 27, Tony’s deputies had made zero immigration arrests. Uthmeier declined to comment.

Over the decades, just a handful of local law-enforcement agencies cut 287(g) deals with ICE, according to the American Immigration Council. But Trump has hugely expanded these agreements to supplement roughly 65,000 ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents with additional forces.

St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick, who polices a 40-mile stretch of I-95 around St. Augustine, Florida, says his officers now routinely question people’s immigration status when they get pulled over someone for speeding or other infraction. He already has 66 of his sheriff’s officers trained and deputized by ICE, and is adding another 45.

This year his deputies have arrested about 700 people on immigration charges, mainly during vehicle stops, expanding a years-long practice of running a check for federal immigration violations when they suspected someone may be undocumented, he said.

“So to take this enforcement on as a sheriff when our new president took office was easy because we were kind of already doing it, holding people accountable,” Hardwick said in an interview. But now, he says, there’s much more support from the federal government.

It’s part of the president’s growing toolkit for his immigration crackdown. Even amid court challenges, Trump has deployed thousands of active duty military troops, along with combat vehicles and more than 100 Coast Guard boats, to the border, where crossings have plummeted. He’s also sought to deploy National Guard troops in major cities — including Los Angeles — though many of those efforts have been legally blocked or scaled back.

In the interior of the country, ICE recorded more than 196,000 arrests between Jan. 20 and Sept. 20, according to data posted by the agency. During that same time, ICE has deported about 180,000 people.

Police chiefs and sheriffs who have criticized the 287(g) agreements often point to the complexities of immigration law, limited training for their officers and the legal liabilities they could create.

Allegations of racial profiling have dogged previous iterations of the program. A Justice Department report in 2011 concluded sheriff’s officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, had engaged in profiling to target and arrest Latino residents.

Florida’s push for immigration arrests may have led to mistakes, according to court records and interviews with immigration lawyers.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 21-year-old U.S. citizen, was headed from his home in Georgia to a carpet installation job in Tallahassee with two co-workers on April 16. Soon after crossing into Florida, a state trooper pulled over their vehicle for speeding and questioned their immigration status.

“I told him I was born here, showed them my license, my Social Security card, but he didn’t believe me,” Lopez-Gomez said in an interview in Spanish. The trooper handcuffed and arrested Lopez-Gomez for allegedly violating a Florida law against entering the state as an illegal alien, records show. It was the same law a federal judge had blocked as unconstitutional two weeks before.

A county judge threw out the case after Lopez-Gomez’s mother showed up with his birth certificate, but said only ICE could get him out of jail, Lopez-Gomez said. He spent 38 hours locked up before an ICE agent reviewed his documents and let him go. He says he is considering filing a lawsuit for unlawful arrest.

“I still don’t understand why they did that to me,” Lopez-Gomez said from his home in Cairo, Georgia. “Every day I leave the house scared they will try to deport me again – the anxiety gets the best of me.”

The Florida Highway Patrol declined to comment.

DeSantis has aggressively gone after towns and sheriffs perceived as resisting working with ICE.

Fort Myers, a town on the Gulf Coast, backed down from refusing to sign a deal with ICE after Uthmeier threatened to remove city commissioners from office for violating state law.

A few miles west of downtown Miami in Doral, a heavily Latino city where Trump owns a golf course, Police Chief Edwin Lopez has no plans to order his officers to hunt for undocumented immigrants even though the department plans to sign a 287(g) agreement.

“I do a lot of educating the community and let them know that the police department is here to protect and serve,” Lopez, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in an interview. “We’re not necessarily arbitrarily requesting or asking questions in terms of immigration status.”

Among the state agencies that has made immigration arrests is the Florida Lottery’s security division. The force of roughly a dozen officers is charged with securing lottery drawings, investigating fake tickets and running background checks on retailers. But on April 24, it signed a 287(g) agreement, and it has since made 10 immigration arrests. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment.

One major incentive for law-enforcement agencies to sign the 287(g) agreements is the promise of a cash infusion. ICE is now offering to fully reimburse salary and benefits and part of the overtime for each trained 287(g) officer, and to pay quarterly bonuses of as much as $1,000 if certain arrest targets are met.

The money hasn’t always worked.

Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux turned down a request from ICE to join the 287(g) program that came with a promise of $25 million in reimbursements for salaries and operational costs.

“Our officers are focused on serving our city by answering 911 calls and aggressively fighting violent crime,” Comeaux said in a statement. “Federal authorities have a different mission with the same importance.”

In Loudoun County, Virginia, one of the nation’s wealthiest suburbs, Sheriff Mike Chapman has an agreement to hold inmates flagged by ICE until federal officers can take custody.

But he isn’t going to order his deputies to become immigration agents. He wants them to focus on local safety and community engagement.

“People may not like what we’re doing, but they trust us,” he said in an interview. “They realize it’s important to keep them safe, and that’s what we’re about.”

Some cops just don’t know what to do with their partnership with ICE, like Sheriff K. Zane Hopkins in Nebraska’s Banner County. His desolate 745-square-mile rectangle in the southwest part of the state has fewer than 700 residents, making it home to “more cows than people.”

Hopkins, a Republican elected in 2023, signed a 287(g) agreement in part because Banner somehow ended up on the Department of Homeland Security’s list of so-called “sanctuary” counties, which restrict local police from assisting federal immigration agents. Signing up with ICE was an effort to help clear up any misconceptions. But a traffic stop that involves an immigration issue, he said, can keep him or his sole deputy occupied for an hour or more.

Hopkins recalls two traffic stops since 2023 that involved a driver suspected of being in violation of federal immigration laws, and both times ICE agents opted not to respond. The county is a nearly seven-hour drive from Nebraska’s lone ICE office in Omaha.

“We are not actively going out and looking for people.” Hopkins said of immigration enforcement. “If we do it, we do it as part of our daily duties. I’m not super worried about trying to enforce it and I’m not going to chase reimbursement.”

—With assistance from Fabiola Zerpa and Phil Kuntz.

©2025 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

CHICAGO (AP) — A Democratic congressional candidate in Illinois has been indicted along with five others over blocking vehicles during protests outside a federal immigration enforcement building in suburban Chicago, according to court documents.

The indictment, filed last week by a special grand jury, accuses Kat Abughazaleh of blocking a federal agent outside the detention center.

“This is a political prosecution and a gross attempt to silence dissent, a right protected under the First Amendment. This case is a major push by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish anyone who speaks out against them,” Abughazaleh said in a video posted to BlueSky.

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — After waiting more than four decades to clear his name in a friend’s 1980 killing, Subramanyam Vedam was set to walk free from a Pennsylvania prison this month.

Vedam and Thomas Kinser were the 19-year-old children of Penn State University faculty. Vedam was the last person seen with Kinser and was twice convicted of killing him, despite a lack of witnesses or motive.

In August, a judge threw out the conviction after Vedam’s lawyers found new ballistics evidence that prosecutors had never disclosed.

As his sister prepared to bring him home on Oct. 3, the thin, white-haired Vedam was instead taken into federal custody over a 1999 deportation order. The 64-year-old, who legally came to the U.S. from India when he was 9 months old, now faces another daunting legal fight.

Amid the Trump Administration’s focus on mass deportations, Vedam’s lawyers must persuade an immigration court that a 1980s drug conviction should be outweighed by the years he wrongly spent in prison. For a time, immigration law allowed people who had reformed their lives to seek such waivers. Vedam never pursued it then because of the murder conviction.

“He was someone who’s suffered a profound injustice,” said immigration lawyer Ava Benach. “(And) those 43 years aren’t a blank slate. He lived a remarkable experience in prison.”

Vedam earned several degrees behind bars, tutored hundreds of fellow inmates and went nearly half a century with just a single infraction, involving rice brought in from the outside.

His lawyers hope immigration judges will consider the totality of his case. The administration, in a brief filed Friday, opposes the effort. So Vedam remains at an 1,800-bed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in central Pennsylvania.

“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email about the case.

‘Mr. Vedam, where were you born?’

After his initial conviction was thrown out, Vedam faced an unusual set of questions at his 1988 retrial.

“Mr. Vedam, where were you born?” Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar asked. “How frequently would you go back to India?

“During your teenage years, did you ever get into meditation?”

Gopal Balachandran, the Penn State law professor who won the reversal, believes the questions were designed to alienate him from the all-white jury, which returned a second guilty verdict.

The Vedams were among the first Indian families in the area known as “Happy Valley,” where his father had come as a postdoctoral fellow in 1956. An older daughter was born in State College, but “Subu,” as he was known, was born when the family was back in India in 1961.

They returned to State College for good before his first birthday, and became the family that welcomed new members of the Indian diaspora to town.

“They were fully engaged. My father loved the university. My mother was a librarian, and she helped start the library,” said the sister, Saraswathi Vedam, 68, a midwifery professor in Vancouver, British Columbia.

While she left for college in Massachusetts, Subu became swept up in the counterculture of the late 1970s, growing his hair long and dabbling in drugs while taking classes at Penn State.

One day in December 1980, Vedem asked Kinser for a ride to nearby Lewisburg to buy drugs. Kinser was never seen again, although his van was found outside his apartment. Nine months later, hikers found his body in a wooded area miles away.

Vedam was detained on drug charges while police investigated, and was ultimately charged with murder. He was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to life without parole. To resolve the drug case, he pleaded no contest to four counts of selling LSD and a theft charge. The 1988 retrial offered no reprieve from his situation.

Although the defense long questioned the ballistics evidence in the case, the jury, which heard that Vedam had bought a .25-caliber gun from someone, never heard that an FBI report suggested the bullet wound was too small to have been fired from that gun. Balachandran only found that report as he dug into the case in 2023.

After hearings on the issue, a Centre County judge threw out the conviction and the district attorney decided this month not to retry the case.

Trump officials oppose the petition

Benach, the immigration lawyer, often represents clients trying to stay in the U.S. despite an earlier infraction. Still, she finds the Vedam case “truly extraordinary” given the constitutional violations involved.

“Forty-three years of wrongful imprisonment more than makes up for the possession with intent to distribute LSD when he was 20 years old,” she said.

Vedam could spend several more months in custody before the Board of Immigration Appeals decides whether to reopen the case. ICE officials, in a brief Friday, said the clock ran out years ago.

“He has provided no evidence nor argument to show he has been diligent in pursuing his rights as it pertains to his immigration status,” Katherine B. Frisch, an assistant chief counsel, wrote.

Saraswathi Vedam is saddened by the latest delay, but said her brother remains patient.

“He, more than anybody else, knows that sometimes things don’t make sense,” she said. “You have to just stay the course and keep hoping that truth and justice and compassion and kindness will win.”