Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) traveled to Leavenworth, Kansas, on Wednesday to visit an immigration detention facility where two Milwaukee women are being held, interview them and check on their welfare. Reyna Elizabeth Garcia and Estenderly Marte Polanco were both arrested during a surge of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in early July. 

Their arrests were described as excessive and violent by advocates from Voces de la Frontera, who monitored the surge and who joined Moore on the Kansas visit. Moore said that the Leavenworth ICE facility currently holds 450 people but  is designed to hold more than 1,000. She said she saw signs of rapid expansion. Moore fears that the facility will quickly fill up with more people. “They are building so they can fill this thing up with twice as many detainees,” she said. 

Garcia and Polanco told Moore that they are being treated as human beings, Moore said. Detainees are allowed to leave their cells and be in a common area during the day, and the facility has plans for an area where detainees will be able to exercise and get access to sunlight. Moore observed various meals being prepared including kosher and vegetarian options, indicating that the facility is making an attempt to meet dietary needs, although  the food appeared to be  of  low quality. 

Most of the people held at Leavenworth are not criminals, Moore said. Still, she said, “it is a very depressive setting, it is definitely a prison, and they are aggressively building.”

Officials at the facility denied any medical neglect, Moore said, and the detention center has  doctors on call, but no full-time medical staff within the facility itself. 

“We had some hard questions for the ICE officials,” Moore said. “We were very curious to see where the murders and rapists were, and they were unable to show us that.” 

Garcia was arrested in late May along with her brother and fiance after ICE agents in unmarked vehicles followed them as they were leaving  a local grocery store in Milwaukee. Her fiance, Galo Suárez, was later released and told by ICE agents to walk away and to not look back or else he’d face consequences, he said during a Voces press conference after the arrest. Polanco was arrested the same weekend while driving with her 11-year-old son, who was in the back seat when ICE agents pulled her out of her car. During the arrest, agents split Polanco’s lip, threw her to the ground, and at one point placed her in a position where she couldn’t breathe, she said. In both arrests, agents were described by witnesses as mocking and insulting the people they were arresting. 

After her visit, Moore described Garcia as extremely depressed. Polanco checks on her, Moore said, adding that Polanco has a strong faith in the power of prayer and uses this to help lift Garcia’s spirits.

While Garcia’s fiance was released the same day he was arrested, Moore said that the family later learned that her brother had been deported. Polanco said that she told the agents that she was scared about what  would happen to her child, who was born prematurely. He remains  traumatized after witnessing her arrest, Moore said, and blames himself for his mother’s detention. 

Garcia told Moore that she left Nicaragua because “the politics put me in danger,” only to find herself in a similar situation in the U.S. 

Moore criticized the historic level of funding for ICE in recent budgets — more than $120 billion — and said her Democratic colleagues worked together to stop further allocations in the most recent budget reconciliation bill.  At Leavenworth, she said, she wondered where all the money was going. “I was looking for the sauna,” she joked. The privately run facility is operated by CoreCivic, which sold the facility to the federal government for $238.4 million — about $300,000 per bed. Moore said it is comparable to other prisons that don’t bring in  nearly as much money. 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration wants to overhaul the U.S. census to exclude noncitizens who don’t have a green card from the country’s next population count in 2030, according to a Wednesday notice in the Federal Register. 

The document, which will officially be published Thursday, could mean major changes for how millions in federal funding is allocated to states, as well as affect the population numbers for determining the number of U.S. House members in each state. The House is made up of 435 lawmakers apportioned among congressional districts in the 50 states.

The move is likely to face legal challenges, as the changes run counter to the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment that directs representatives in Congress to be appointed based on the “whole number of persons in each State,” excluding Native Americans “not taxed.” 

The amendment language does not specify immigration status. The states handled immigration enforcement until the federal government took over in 1882 with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. 

The proposed changes would exclude any noncitizens who do not have lawful permanent residence, or a green card, which could result in millions being excluded from the population count. That would include immigrants in the country without legal authorization, those with some form of temporary legal status, refugees and asylum seekers. 

The unauthorized immigrant population — that includes noncitizens who have some form of limited legal status — has grown to more than 15.8 million since mid-2024.

The Trump administration argues that noncitizens who are not green card holders should be kept out of the census count because “they are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a ‘usual residence’ in the United States due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States,” according to the document. 

The proposal also calls for removing several questions pertaining to sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and suggests adding a question relating to citizenship, which President Donald Trump has pushed to include since his first term. But the Supreme Court in 2019 kept the question off the 2020 census. 

The Trump administration wants those demographic questions removed from the census because the survey “should be colorblind and should not be distorted in any way by questions about immaterial personal characteristics, such as race,” the proposal says.

The census has collected information about race and ethnicity since 1790, the first survey count in the U.S.

Public comment will last for 30 days after the document is officially published Thursday.

WASHINGTON —  Temporary protected status for 170,000 Salvadorans is set to expire at midnight Wednesday, but the Department of Homeland Security said protections will remain in place until the Trump administration makes a decision to extend or terminate El Salvador’s designation, in place since 2001.

“An announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email to States Newsroom. “Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection.”

Based on the temporary protected status statute, if a determination to extend or terminate a country’s protections is not made by the government by the expiration of the deadline, then TPS is automatically extended for six months.

If the Trump administration does make a determination to end protections, then Salvadorans will have 60 days to leave the United States.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has not indicated his plans for El Salvador’s temporary legal protections. Additionally, there is no notice in Wednesday’s Federal Register or a preview of Thursday’s edition regarding TPS for El Salvador. 

On Tuesday, White House border czar Tom Homan said the decision would be up to Mullin, but added that El Salvador is now much safer than when its previous designation was made in 2001. 

If TPS is terminated for nationals for El Salvador, they will be the latest large group of immigrants to lose their legal status in the country as President Donald Trump has sought to dismantle the program Congress created for people who hail from countries deemed too dangerous for return. 

The Supreme Court has accelerated that move. The court’s conservative majority this summer determined that the TPS statute does not allow decisions on country designations, terminations and extensions to be subject to judicial review. 

Before the start of the second Trump administration, 17 countries had TPS, totaling to about 1.3 million immigrants with legal status. 

Now, if TPS for El Salvador ends, only three countries will remain: Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine. 

TPS is granted to nationals who hail from a country experiencing a natural disaster, violence, or other extreme circumstances, allowing them to remain in the U.S. and obtain work permits that last for six-to-18-month cycles. 

Each renewal process requires a TPS holder to go through a background check and pay hundreds of dollars in fees as well as undergo other vetting.  

If TPS ends for El Salvador, it could stymie the country’s economy, where more than a quarter of its gross domestic product relies on money sent back to the country from Salvadorans in the U.S., known as remittances. 

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, also has a close relationship with the Trump administration, ranging from accepting deportees that are not Salvadoran into his country to visiting the president at the White House.

In 2019, Bukele asked the first Trump administration to extend TPS protections, not because El Salvador was unsafe, but because the end of designation would break apart families in the U.S. 

Bukele has not made any recent public calls for the Trump administration to continue TPS for Salvadorans. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro, who is accused of shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis through the closed door of a Minneapolis home in January, turned himself in to federal authorities on Thursday, the Associated Press and other outlets reported. 

Castro was indicted by a federal grand jury this week on six charges of making false statements related to the shooting, according to the indictment which was unsealed on Friday. 

Matthew Evans, the assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota in charge of the case, was pursuing hefty civil rights charges against Castro, but was instructed by Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C. to downgrade the charges.

Evans was fired, CBS News reported Thursday, citing four unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

By charging Castro only with making false statements, the DOJ will not have to litigate whether the shooting was justified.

The Jan. 14 shooting followed a car chase between Castro and Alfredo Aljorna, who lived in the same duplex as Sosa-Celis. The chase ended at the men’s duplex, as Aljorna exited his car and tried to get inside the house. Aljorna slipped, and Castro jumped on top of him. 

Sosa-Celis dropped the shovel he was holding to help Aljorna up, and both men ran inside. Castro’s shot passed through the door and hit Sosa-Celis in the leg before coming to a stop in the wall of a child’s bedroom. 

Castro accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of assaulting him with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro opened fire, leading to assault charges against the two men that were dropped after surveillance footage proved Castro’s statements false.

The six charges in the indictment stem from six specific lies Castro told FBI investigators after the shooting. Four of the counts are related to Castro accusing Sosa-Celis, Aljorna and a nonexistent third man of hitting him with a broom or shovel. One count is for Castro stating that a physical altercation between the three men lasted three minutes, and another count is over Castro’s statement that he was on the ground when he fired his gun. 

According to surveillance footage no one hit Castro with a broom or shovel. The physical altercation between them lasted 11 seconds, not three minutes. There was no other man present besides Castro, Aljorna and Sosa-Celis, and Castro was standing when he fired at the front door of the house. 

Castro worked for the U.S. Border Patrol for eight years before joining ICE in September, according to the indictment. 

Castro is also charged in Minnesota with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He was arrested in May by Texas Rangers, a state law enforcement agency, and held in a Texas county jail for 90 days. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked Castro’s extradition to Minnesota, prompting a lawsuit from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, which failed to stop Castro’s release from jail last week. 

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty released a statement Thursday saying Castro is expected to appear first in a federal court in Texas, and a date will be set for his appearance in a Minnesota federal court. 

“Despite Gov. Abbott’s best efforts to shield Mr. Castro, we will see him soon,” Moriarty said. 

Months after Ramón Morales Reyes was falsely accused by the Department of Homeland Security of penning letters threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump, his children Ana and Antonio say that their family continues to live in fear while awaiting the outcome of their father’s deportation case. 

“My dad was framed for something that he did not do, and DHS knew exactly what they posted beforehand,” Ana Morales, 25, said at a press conference Friday at the Milwaukee office of Voces de la Frontera. “As a daughter, seeing my dad being framed for something he did not do was very heartbreaking,” she added.

Attorney Mark Thomsen said the family is seeking $5 million in damages caused by the federal government’s accusations against Morales Reyes, which the agency has yet to retract. Thomsen was joined by immigration attorney Cain Oulahan, Morales Reyes’ children, Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann-Oritz, and Milwaukee Turners Executive Director Emilio de Torre. 

Accused of something he didn’t do

In May 2025, Morales Reyes, then 54, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leaving his unoccupied vehicle on the roadside. Voces de la Frontera received a hotline call reporting the arrest. 

Born in Mexico, Morales Reyes has lived in the United States since 1986. His family described him as a hard worker and proud family man, who worked as a dishwasher.

His arrest came as the Trump administration ramped up arrests and deportations in 2025, the deadliest year in two decades for people being detained by ICE. Trump pledged to go after “the worst of the worst.” 

Morales Reyes had two encounters with law enforcement, both dating back to 1996, according to NPR. One was a hit-and-run incident in which he was arrested but not charged. The other was a disorderly conduct and property damage ticket relating to a dispute with his wife.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted a statement on her agency’s website calling Morales Reyes an “illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump.” 

DHS also released images of a letter, handwritten in English, that said: “we are tired of this president messing with us Mexicans” and stating “I will self deport myself back to Mexico but not before I use my 30 yard 6 to shoot your precious president in is head — I will see him at one of his big ralleys .” The reference to “30 yard 6”appears to be an incorrectly written reference to the high caliber rifle round .30-06.

Morales Reyes couldn’t have written the letter, however, his family, attorneys, and advocates said, since he could not speak English and did not read or write proficiently even in Spanish. 

Morales Reyes had applied for a U-visa, granted to victims of crimes, after he was  assaulted during an armed robbery in September 2023. Detectives from the Milwaukee Police Department were actively investigating whether someone was trying to frame him when ICE agents arrested him and publicized the  accusation that he was a would-be assassin. It was later determined that a man who had been arrested for assaulting Morales Reyes had written the letter in an effort to get him deported before he could testify in court.

Lasting harm

In June 2025, Morales-Reyes was released from ICE custody on bond. Yet he continues to face deportation proceedings, with a hearing expected in December in which a judge may make a decision on whether Morales Reyes can remain in the country. The family has received online harassment and threats since Morales Reyes was accused of writing the letter, Ana Morales said.

“He’s been going through depression, anxiety,” she said during the Friday press conference. “He doesn’t like going out anymore because he feels like everyone knows him due to what he was framed as. And ever since, it has taken a lot from us.” 

Ana’s brother Antonio Morales took over the mic when  his sister began to cry. “They really wanted to make this hurt us as much as possible, inflict as much pain, and they knew what they were doing intentionally,” he said of the Homeland Security arrest and accusations against his father.

“It was hard seeing your dad all over social media posted as some sort of, you know, some sort of assassin almost,” he added. “And that’s just not who my father is. Anyone who knows my father knows that isn’t him. It was just really scary seeing all those comments online, the fear that it caused my family seeing how everybody just…threatening us online over something that was just a false accusation. And I really think DHS knew that. I really think that they knew what they were doing. They wanted to do this to us. They want to do this to more immigrants, and they really want to keep terrorizing the community going forward.”

Thomsen asked members of the public to “imagine learning on social media that your father, or your grandfather, or your uncle, or your brother, or your sister was being accused of attempting to kill the president of the United States.” He added, “Imagine what that means, and then imagine that the person that is saying it is the strongest government in the world. … This was a lie, and they knew it was a lie. The lie is still up.”

Gesturing to Ana and Antonio Morales, he said, “Check it out folks, these are two young people with the courage to stand up to the biggest government on the planet, the most powerful government on the planet, and say, ‘Do the right thing America.’ If these two young folks can do it, everybody sitting at home safely can do it.”

Looking ahead

Although DHS has said in subsequent statements that Morales Reyes is no longer under investigation for threatening the president, the agency has continued to call for his deportation. Noem’s original press release accusing him of the assassination threat is still up on the government website. The Wisconsin Examiner reached out to DHS asking specifically whether the agency plans to remove the post and correct the record. The agency has not responded. 

Oulahan said that although Morales Reyes has a hearing in December, if a judge decides to deport him, he could remain in the country while his case is appealed. Thomsen said that the federal government has six months to respond to the family’s claim for compensation under the federal Tort Act, after which filing a civil lawsuit would be an option. Thomsen stressed, however, that avenues of recourse against the federal government are limited and that the second Trump administration has shown a willingness to violate or disregard court orders. 

De Torre said the federal government is “deceiving the public about everyday people.”

“They’re disrupting us emotionally, as you can see from Ana and Antonio. … It is disrupting our economy. It is disrupting our ability to attend houses of worship, go to school, and bring home food for our families. And on top of this, they then deny that they are doing this. Telling us that what we see is not real. How we feel and how we’re suffering is an illusion. And I’m sitting here today to say this is not so.”

Asked to describe some of her favorite memories of her father, Ana recalled how he would take her to the park and bike riding, one of his favorite activities. “I remember as a little kid on his days off I would always want corn, I’m obsessed with corn even to this day,” she said. Despite working second shift her father would always make time, she said. 

Antonio described his father as fond of video games. “He definitely made me a gamer,” he said. Occasionally Morales Reyes would let his son play. “I was just so amazed by these games,” he recalled, smiling. “It was really fun.”

Recently released data from the Department of Homeland Security shows ICE arrests in Wisconsin increased from 119 in May to 220 in June. More than 2,100 people have been detained in Wisconsin since January 2025.

The post ICE arrests in Wisconsin hit new highs this summer appeared first on WPR.

The family of a Milwaukee man wrongly accused last year by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of threatening to kill President Donald Trump plans to sue the agency for $5.5 million for emotional pain and suffering.

The post Milwaukee family to sue ICE for father’s detention over fake threat against Trump appeared first on WPR.

WASHINGTON — For years, Jose Palma has advocated for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status who hail from countries deemed too unstable for return.

But as the Trump administration has stripped those humanitarian protections for nearly a million people, the Salvadoran national is uncertain if his own legal status will remain in place next week. 

“I’m going day by day,” Palma, who lives in Texas, told States Newsroom in an interview. 

Within two years under the Trump administration, the bipartisan humanitarian Temporary Protected Status program created by Congress in 1990 and signed into law by former Republican President George H.W. Bush has been nearly obliterated.

Palma first obtained TPS in 2001, along with roughly 170,000 recipients from El Salvador, due to several earthquakes that displaced more than one-sixth of the population and left thousands dead. The United States renewed protections over the years, citing continued displacement and ongoing violence.

But the TPS designation for El Salvador is set to expire Sept. 9, and the Department of Homeland Security has made no indication if protections will be renewed. 

Under DHS policy, an announcement typically is made 60 days in advance of the date of a TPS expiration if a renewal is planned. 

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who helped write the statute for TPS when he was a congressional staffer, said he’s asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to renew protections for El Salvador.

“I still haven’t received a response back,” McGovern said during a Thursday press conference at the U.S. Capitol. He was joined by Nebraska GOP Rep. Don Bacon, who said many Salvadoran TPS recipients work and live in his Omaha district. 

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

The Trump administration’s position on the program is that it’s “temporary,” and that country conditions have improved, despite warnings from the State Department to not travel to some of those countries where TPS designation has ended, such as Haiti.

If TPS for El Salvador ends, only 103,000 out of initially 1.3 million recipients from around the globe will have protections: 150 from Lebanon, 1,790 from Sudan and 101,150 from Ukraine.

Supreme Court decision

TPS is granted to nationals who hail from a country experiencing a natural disaster, violence, or other extreme circumstances, allowing them to remain in the U.S. and obtain work permits. 

Some protections can last through six-to-18-month cycles, and each renewal process requires a TPS holder to go through a background check and other vetting.  

Before the second Trump administration, 17 countries were in the program. Only four, including El Salvador, remain as the White House has forged ahead aggressively on its mass deportation campaign. 

The Supreme Court made the move easier after it ruled this summer that decisions from the executive branch to end TPS were not subject to judicial review. The order meant that lower courts that initially blocked the Trump administration from ending the designations had to reverse their decisions.

Now recipients face the end of TPS with just 60 days’ notice.

“It’s one of those things that is kind of cruel, to have families who are stable and have been stable for decades, to have people who have been doing everything the government asked them to do for 25 years, and suddenly, if the decision is to end TPS, provided only 60 days protection before forcing people to go back to a country they haven’t been for decades,” Palma said. 

One of the first countries after TPS was written into law to receive the designation was El Salvador. 

Stripping TPS from Salvadorans would not only harm the U.S. economy, but it would also negatively impact El Salvador’s fragile economy, advocates predict. More than one quarter of El Salvador’s Gross Domestic Product comes from family members sending money back to relatives in their country of origin, known as remittances. 

“El Salvador’s economy has been built thanks to all the remittances,” said Ana María Méndez-Dardón, the director for Central America at the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA.  “So if people are returning, that would have a huge impact because the economy depends on the money that people from El Salvador living in the U.S. send to El Salvador.”

The spending also has an impact in the United States. Salvadoran TPS recipients contribute $5.4 billion to the U.S. economy and pay $1.5 billion in federal, state and local taxes, according to the immigration advocacy research group FWD.us. 

About 152,000 TPS recipients from El Salvador are in the workforce, mainly in construction, manufacturing, building and transportation.

Attempts in Congress

TPS does not create a pathway to citizenship and a recipient can only apply for it when the country receives its designation. 

Some TPS recipients can apply for asylum if they qualify, or others could apply to adjust their status to that of a lawful permanent resident, or green-card holder, through a family-based or employer-based petition. 

Congress has made some effort to extend TPS for some recipients. Earlier this year, the House passed a bill to extend TPS for up to 350,000 Haitians on a bipartisan basis, but it’s stalled in the upper chamber. 

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen attempted to advance a bill in the Senate to create a legal pathway to citizenship for immigrants with TPS, but was blocked by Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt. 

McGovern said Thursday that there is a bipartisan push to extend protections for TPS recipients. Proof of that was Bacon’s presence at the press conference.

“What good is it to force out folks who’ve been here legally, who are working, who are part of our community?” Bacon said. “It does no one any good.”

Human rights in El Salvador

Many Salvadorian TPS recipients are worried about being forced back to El Salvador, where human rights groups have raised concerns about the authoritarian government of President Nayib Bukele, said WOLA’s Méndez-Dardón.

WOLA is a research and advocacy group that aims to advance human rights in North and South America. It has documented how Bukele’s political party has suspended due process rights and has carried out a mass incarceration of suspected gang members in an effort to reduce crime and murders. 

More than 90,000 Salvadorans have been jailed without due process and hundreds have died in prisons and altogether disappeared, human rights groups have reported.

“So for Salvadorians who might be returned, the risk no longer are the criminal groups or the gangs because many of them fled the country because of the security situation,” Méndez-Dardón said. “But although the gangs are no longer the threat, now the threat is the state.” 

Bukele has met with President Donald Trump several times at the White House and has a years-long working relationship with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who last year granted El Salvador the highest possible safety rating for travel, a level 1. 

In 2024, the State Department gave El Salvador a level 3 advisory, warning people to reconsider travel because of security and safety concerns.

The Trump administration also last year made a deal with the Salvadoran government to pay up to $6 million to detain hundreds of Venezuelans at a brutal mega-prison. In the high-profile case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland Salvadoran who was mistakenly deported to the mega prison, lawyers documented mental and physical torture he experienced while there. 

“People are basically under a constant fear of being detained by the security forces,” Méndez-Dardón said. 

U.S. citizen children

Palma, who also attended the press conference, said he, along with other Salvadoran TPS recipients, are concerned about El Salvador’s government.

“So crime has gone down, but now abuses to human rights have increased,” he said. “That is concerning, because it’s also the government is becoming more aggressive against opposition, public media.”

Palma questioned if El Salvador would have the infrastructure to accept as many as 200,000 Salvadorans, made up of the TPS recipients and their families. Many have U.S. citizen children. 

Palma, who has four U.S. citizen children, said two of his kids are still in primary school. One is 11 and another is 8 years old. 

“This is their country,” he said of his four children. “They are from here. But if I were to lose the TPS protection and I were to be forced to go back to El Salvador, it’s not just affecting me. It’s affecting the whole family. That’s kind of like the situation that so many people across the country are going through right now.”

Supporting her mom

There are roughly 150,000 U.S. citizen children who have a parent who is a Salvadoran TPS recipient, according to the National TPS alliance. 

Cristel Argueta is one of those children. At 20 years old, she’s a college student at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. But on Thursday, she missed four classes relating to her criminology and criminal justice degree to travel to the nation’s capital and advocate for an extension to TPS for El Salvador. 

“I’m missing class to be here, but it’s worth it because it’s for my family,” she said.

Her mother, a TPS holder from El Salvador, came to the U.S. when she was 19, fleeing the civil war that lasted from 1979 until 1992. Her mother was able to get TPS in 2001.

“She has been in this country longer than she has been in El Salvador,” Argueta said. “TPS was started by Salvadorans, and I don’t want to lose my mother.” 

She’s hoping her mother’s TPS is extended until at least Argueta’s 21st birthday, when Argueta will be able to become a sponsor and apply to change her mother’s status to that of a lawful permanent resident. 

“No one should be going through this at any age,” she said. “Seeing the difference in my peers at school who are 20 years old, waiting to turn 21, to get that first legal drink or go party, but I want to turn 21 just to give my mom a legal status. A permanent legal status.”

A federal judge in Maryland Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s second attempt to redefine birthright citizenship. 

In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman barred the Trump administration from carrying out the president’s executive order that would deny citizenship to babies born in the United States to parents deemed part of a designated terrorist organization or to parents who purposefully came to the U.S. to gain citizenship in what critics call “birth tourism.” 

The executive order also aimed to deny citizenship to children born to foreign diplomatic staff and children born in U.S. territories where Congress has not passed a law granting citizenship, which is only American Samoa.

In her order, Boardman said this summer’s Supreme Court ruling affirmed the country’s long understanding that babies born on U.S. soil were guaranteed American citizenship. 

“The 2026 Executive Order is almost certainly unconstitutional as applied to the certified class for the simple reason that the Supreme Court in Barbara already decided that the children in the class are citizens at birth,” she wrote, referring to the earlier case. “This Court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the President’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them.”

The White House did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

President Donald Trump's administration says it is pulling accreditation from more than 100 trucking schools, including three in Wisconsin, as part of its effort to crack down on immigration.

The post Wisconsin trucking schools among dozens shuttered as part of immigration crackdown appeared first on WPR.

In Minnesota, an elementary schooler has gone without surgery to treat a rare, life-threatening neck infection that isn’t responding to antibiotics.

Another young child can’t use their hearing aids because the family ran out of batteries and hasn’t come to get replacements.

Yet another child’s cochlear implant surgery was delayed by several months. 

These patients’ families, all immigrants, have been afraid of showing up to the hospital after immigration officers flooded their communities in recent months, said their doctor, pediatric otolaryngologist Asitha Jayawardena, a head and neck surgeon at Children’s Minnesota. 

Clinicians like Jayawardena say immigration arrests and detentions are taking a particularly acute toll on children’s health as families isolate at home. He’s seen some cases — such as the child with the neck infection — worsen because fearful parents aren’t coming in. 

“Without a doubt, it oscillates between being infuriating and absolutely disheartening,” Jayawardena said about the chilling effect. 

As the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement leads to sweeping arrests, healthcare workers say those actions have hit children hard — including children who are U.S. citizens and those in families without arrests.

Many healthcare providers report that since January 2025, they’ve seen a surge in missed pediatric appointments, delayed preventive care, and sick or injured kids going without treatment. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests have continued to climb — with a record 51,000 arrests in July — and experts predict continued unhealthy outcomes among children, causing collateral damage that could extend for years. 

Healthcare workers told Stateline that in addition to the physical healthcare fallout, they’ve also seen a significant increase in depression, anxiety and post-trauma symptoms among their pediatric patients. 

Delayed healthcare has critical consequences for young kids. For example, hearing loss, such as that experienced by Jayawardena’s patients, can hinder crucial development including speech, language and social skills. Along with missing health milestones and getting needed healthcare, kids are grappling with the long-term trauma of losing a parent.

“Community-wide trauma that is being inflicted is having a really important impact on families and children in particular. There are children that are losing their guardians. There are families that are losing their breadwinners,” said Amy Liebman, chief program officer of the Migrant Clinicians Network, a nationwide organization of healthcare workers serving migrant families.

“That certainly is going to ultimately impact their health and then their ability to access care,” she said.

The Trump administration also has introduced rules that allow federal agencies to take into account a family’s use of public benefits when reviewing applications for lawful immigration status. Dr. Gabriela Maradiaga Panayotti, a pediatrician in Durham, North Carolina, pointed to studies showing that such policies lead to a decrease in healthcare use, including among U.S. citizen children.

One of her patients, a U.S. citizen on Medicaid, had stopped a medication for ADHD that had helped him achieve better grades at school. His parents feared being targeted through Medicaid paperwork, so they didn’t refill his prescription. The child’s grades began to drop again.

“They didn’t want to be labeled as utilizing resources,” Maradiaga Panayotti said. “I hurt for him, especially because he’s at this tender preteen age where self-confidence and performance at school can really either build on and set a good foundation for success in high school, or can drop.”

Millions of children

Researchers at the Brookings Institution, a public policy research nonprofit, estimate that since Jan. 20 of last year, the day President Donald Trump was sworn in, and through early April of this year, over 146,000 U.S. citizen children have had a parent detained.

But many more are living with that fear. 

The Pew Research Center estimates 4.6 million U.S.-born children lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent in 2023, and roughly 2.5 million children could face the detention of both household parents, according to a Brookings analysis. 

But the trend cuts across immigration status — including those born to refugees, DACA recipients, asylees and people with temporary protected status. Across the nation, about a fourth of children are born to immigrant families, according to the Migrant Policy Institute.  

Increased ICE activity has included arrests at hospitals, and the agency has also made unprecedented efforts to obtain private health data, including Medicaid patient records, to extract addresses and immigration statuses — another major source of fear for families.

Jayawardena and his colleagues published a study in the American Academy of Pediatrics medical journal in August measuring whether pediatric outpatient care visits were disrupted during and after the large-scale immigration raids of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, when the Trump administration deployed 3,000 agents, heavily targeting Somali and South Asian communities. 

The research team found that the rate of missed appointments among Hispanic or Latino children increased by over 50% during Metro Surge compared to the same time period — the first week of December to second week of February — in the prior two years.

Missed appointments increased by 80% among Spanish-speaking families and 53% among families needing language interpretation services. 

“The barrier is not necessarily lack of access, but more the fear and the isolation, and so the enforcement is having this chilling effect on immigrant families who, even though they may need these critical services, may be avoiding the hospital, the counseling, the victim services, and other essential care,” said Jasiel Fernandez, vice president of psychosocial supports at the global pro bono nonprofit KIND, or Kids in Need of Defense. “We see that happening over and over.”

The Migrant Clinicians Network, along with Physicians For Human Rights, surveyed nearly 700 healthcare workers across 30 states between March and August of last year, amid spikes in immigration activity. Most of the surveyed professionals — 84% — reported significant or moderate drops in pediatric patient visits since Trump’s January 2025 executive orders on immigration.

Kids also were spending less time outdoors, which affects overall health, and saw delayed diagnoses of their conditions. About 27% of clinicians said patients feared enrolling in benefits for their children, and couldn’t afford doctor visits. Preventive care, such as vaccinations, as well as chronic disease management and mental health care were the most affected, healthcare workers reported. 

And in both the survey and through interviews with Stateline, clinicians have reported seeing kids show up to emergency departments alone.

In Missouri, one pediatric emergency medicine physician, who spoke with Stateline on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation against his hospital, recalled an 11-year-old child who had been attacked by a dog, his legs riddled in bites. He came to the hospital with only his teenage sister.  

“He told us that (his parents) were scared to come in because ICE might be at the hospital,” the physician recalled. 

Others aren’t showing up to care at all. “Kids like these are so vulnerable that they kind of could fall through the cracks,” he added. “We see the downstream effects of policy changes, and we try to address all these needs. But when kids are coming in, they’re super sick.” 

Missed care, advanced illness

Some clinicians told Stateline that by the time some children reach their clinics, their health conditions have advanced to a more difficult stage. 

One North Carolina pediatrician has seen kids with asthma miss inhaler prescriptions, leading to more asthma attacks. In another case, a large family of refugee children came in covered in splotchy, itchy rashes — scabies. The family had been sharing two bedrooms. Afraid, they had postponed care for four weeks. 

“All of these children, totally ridden throughout their bodies, and it’s so uncomfortable. You can’t sleep because it’s horribly itchy,” said the pediatrician, who spoke to Stateline on the condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation since her clinic receives federal funding. 

“We’re creating tremendous problems for our community that will probably come back to bite us, because now these kids are going around with untreated medical conditions that are only going to get worse,” she said. “It’s a time when they need even more support than before, and our administration just isn’t really allowing that.”

She and others said they’re also noticing worsening depression among their patients.

“They’re spiraling out, and they’re not getting any support because they can’t come in and get care,” said the North Carolina pediatrician. She recalled one teenager telling her that they couldn’t sleep at night. “ ‘I’m sobbing and crying, terrified that my parents will be taken away,’ ” she recalled the teen telling her.

Elsewhere, one of KIND’s clients in California, a preteen sexual assault victim, has gone weeks without mental health care.

“The child’s sponsor, who is undocumented, is very afraid to take the young person to mental health appointments or any other kind of follow-up service,” Fernandez said. “Choosing basically to forgo that for the time being.”

In Texas, which has the most immigrant detainees of any state, a 14-year-old’s primary caregiver was detained. The teen has been suffering suicidal ideation.

“That young person is unable to access services,” Fernandez said. “Even if we think that a teenager has a certain level of agency to do certain things, when the caregiver is removed abruptly … the sponsor is not able to support, is not able to meet significant needs and monitoring for that young person.”

Fernandez said KIND has been offering Uber and Lyft rides to field offices because clients are afraid to drive to appointments to receive healthcare.

In southeast Florida’s Indian River County, Heather Miranda is CEO of Treasure Coast Community Health, which runs multiple clinics serving nearby communities of agricultural workers. Clinic staff in the northern area of the county, where Miranda said most immigration enforcement activity has been concentrated, told her they’ve seen a significant decrease of kids coming in — nearly 500 pediatric no-shows since February, 16% of all appointments. 

“They’ve seen kids not coming in for sick visits,” Miranda said. “Not coming in for their well-child or their vaccines. … It’s just been, overall, a decrease in preventative care, which is really, really important.”

Back in Minneapolis, Jayawardena said that even months after Operation Metro Surge, fear among his patient families remains “a persistent problem.”

“I want to help take care of these children, and the families want to get taken care of, as does my entire hospital system — and we cannot get them just physically into the hospital for things that are necessary,” he said.

“It’s just very disheartening knowing that there’s something I can do, but I am prohibited from doing it because families don’t feel safe.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON— More than 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant youth remain at risk of losing their legal representation, one month after the Trump administration ended a federal contract with an organization that provided legal services to migrant children, advocates and attorneys said Tuesday.

Most of those children who initially had attorneys through funding provided by Congress still have access to lawyers because the Acacia Center for Justice and its network of 100 nonprofits have continued to represent the children without pay. 

But unaccompanied immigrant children who have been placed into federal custody since the contract expired after July 31 are likely without attorneys as they appear in immigration court, said Michael Lukens, the executive director of the Amica Center for Justice, which is part of Acacia’s network. 

“Many nonprofits are not taking on new cases,” Lukens said. “We have not closed any case of a child we were already representing — that obviously is not a sustainable model. We feel both ethically and morally obligated to continue as long as we can.”

Without a lawyer, fewer than 10% of immigrant children win the right to remain in the United States while their cases go through immigration court.

Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, the deputy director of Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, said the organization is currently representing 600 children, and cannot represent several children who have recently arrived in Arizona, where the group is based. 

“This is something that is happening across the nation,” she said. 

Contract expired

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied children, let a contract with Acacia for legal services expire July 31. 

The center has a network of roughly 100 organizations it works with that provide legal aid and representation to immigrant children across the country in their immigration court appearances. Acacia has provided legal services for unaccompanied minors for decades. 

Additionally, since December, HHS has not released $65 million that Congress appropriated for legal representation of unaccompanied children in immigration cases, meaning that Acacia and its legal providers have gone for months without reimbursement.

Leaders of Acacia have said the funds were withheld because attorneys refused to hand over to the Trump administration sensitive case data from the unaccompanied children, such as medical records and the types of legal relief the minors are seeking. 

After the contract expired in July, HHS initially awarded a single $150 million contract to a small Texas firm, headed by a former Trump official who served during the first administration. But the law firm, which only had two attorneys that specialized in immigration law and primarily focused on regulatory work, backed out of the contract. 

New contract

In August, the Trump administration awarded a $158 million no-bid contract to a controversial anti-human-trafficking organization called Our Rescue, a Utah-based company that was previously known as Operation Underground Railroad. 

The group was founded by Tim Ballard, who presented it as an “anti-sex-trafficking” organization. The group was featured in the conservative film “Sound of Freedom” that promoted several QAnon conspiracy theories. 

After the movie’s release, Ballard was accused of sexual misconduct by several employees and has since left the organization. 

Our Rescue now specializes in working with law enforcement related to child trafficking cases and is run by a former Department of Homeland Security official, Derek Benner. It’s unclear if there are any immigration attorneys on staff and the group does not have a history of providing legal representation to unaccompanied immigrant youth in immigration court.

Our Rescue did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

Bilal Askaryar, the communications director for Acacia, said Our Rescue has not been in contact with Acacia to transfer over case information.

Avila-Cimpeanu said she has also not heard from Our Rescue to start the transition process for representing the children’s cases. 

“I think it’s very unclear what their role is,” she said. 

The Our Rescue contract will run from Aug. 7 until Feb. 6, 2027, according to its award.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

The U.S. Postal Service rushed the development of electronic tools to comply with a Trump administration policy placing new restrictions on mail-in voting, and defied a court order to stop work on the system, according to an explosive whistleblower complaint published Tuesday by Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

The unnamed whistleblower predicted the result could be “foreseeable catastrophic disruption to our coming nationwide elections based on the reckless pursuit of readying a new, insufficiently tested, poorly planned mail-in ballot screening system.”

The system contains several massive flaws and, with virtually no time to spare before the November elections, USPS officials kept on developing an online verification system in violation of a Massachusetts judge’s injunction, the whistleblower said. 

The system’s verification standard is “a zero percent failure rate,” meaning that any batch of ballots that contain any single ballot with an error would result in an entire batch being rejected, the whistleblower said. 

The verification system itself is suspect due to a hurried and untested development of an online portal that states were to use to upload voter and ballot information for verification by federal officials, the whistleblower said. 

Up against a tight timeline ahead of the midterm elections, the agency also continued to develop an online tool related to the regulation, despite the federal court order to pause the work, according to the whistleblower.

No specific USPS officials were named as responsible for directing the work to continue in defiance of the courts. USPS did not immediately return a request for comment from States Newsroom.

States were expected to begin using the system as soon as Tuesday, according to the whistleblower.

Potential for millions of missing ballots

The allegations from the whistleblower, a federal official whose exact role is not specified, were detailed in a report by Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit legal group that is representing the whistleblower. 

Blumenthal, of Connecticut, attached the report to a letter to U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner.

“The apparently sloppy and rushed manner in which the Federal Ballot Mail Portal and supporting IT systems are being built poses significant risk,” the report said. “Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all.”

The new policy, which President Donald Trump initiated in a March executive order, has been the subject of intense legal fighting over the past few weeks that continues with an appeal now sitting at the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. Democratic state officials and voting rights groups have said the regulation would likely disenfranchise voters.

Blumenthal said the USPS should reject the policy entirely.

“We urge you to abandon this ill-conceived, unconscionable plan and ensure that all Americans can exercise their constitutional right to vote, including by mail, without interference by USPS,” he wrote.

‘Problems at every stage’

In a final rule published Aug. 21, the Postal Service said states would use a to-be-developed online portal to upload information about the envelopes being used for mail ballots and the voters who received them. USPS would also use the portal to verify that all ballots and voters complied with the requirements set out in the new rule.

But the project was beset with several challenges, in part spurred by the unrealistic timeline for development, the whistleblower said.

The whistleblower’s disclosure “identifies problems at every stage of USPS’s development of the Portal, demonstrating deeply flawed plans for implementation,” Blumenthal wrote.

A project of the portal’s size and importance would normally “take nine months to a year or more” to finish, according to the whistleblower’s disclosure. Smaller current Postal Service IT projects have been given eight-month timelines, according to the whistleblower. 

USPS began developing the mail ballot portal in June, just three months before it was to be introduced and less than five months before Election Day, according to the disclosure.

Individual elements of the tool have not been sufficiently tested, “rendering meaningful testing of the project impossible,” the whistleblower said.

“The Whistleblower believes that there has been insufficient internal testing of the system,” the disclosure said. “Such testing is critical to determine whether it will work on September 1, when states could be expected to start using it.”

Software developers on the project have “considerable concern” that the project skipped “standard principles of testing and debugging new software before launch,” the whistleblower said.

One faulty barcode

The IT problems heighten the danger of another major issue: a policy of rejecting entire batches of ballots based on a faulty barcode on a single ballot.

According to the whistleblower, “the administration has hidden the high likelihood” that standard raises for major disruptions in ballot delivery. 

“As presently designed, if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state – effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters,” the report said.

A misread barcode could result from something as simple as a voter’s changed name after marriage or a move of address, Blumenthal said.

Court order

The whistleblower said the USPS paused work for about a month after Judge Indira Talwani in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts issued an injunction against Trump’s executive order, finding, in part, that it likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s provision granting states the power to administer elections.

But USPS officials then ordered work to resume on the project, in defiance of the judicial order that remained in effect, the whistleblower said.

The whistleblower added that the agency ignored another temporary restraining order Talwani, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, issued last week and upheld Monday, and continued to work on the project.

In his letter to Steiner, Blumenthal asked if that was true and posed several other questions stemming from the whistleblower’s report, and asked for a response by Friday.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Treasury’s recent proposed regulation to limit refunds for certain tax credits based on immigration status is the latest move by the Trump administration to restrict noncitizens’ access to federal benefits.

In President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, he has employed a governmentwide approach to fulfilling his immigration agenda that includes not only the central campaign promise of mass deportations, but curtailing what few federal benefits some immigrants had. 

Those actions include pushing out foreign-born workers from the trucking industry, barring noncitizens from accessing government-subsidized housing even for families that include U.S. citizens, and pressuring banks to restrict immigrants’ access to opening accounts or borrowing money.

Previous presidents generally restricted management of immigration to the departments of Homeland Security, State or Justice. But in Trump’s second term, several unrelated federal agencies have undertaken initiatives meant to disadvantage immigrants.

“What’s been unique about this administration is beginning to incorporate agencies that have never before been involved in immigration,” Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an analyst with the immigration think tank Migration Policy Institute, said.

In Trump’s second term, the Department of Transportation, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Small Business Administration and Federal Communications Commission are among the agencies that have sought to carry out the president’s immigration crackdown.

Administration officials have said the benefits of federal programs should be reserved for U.S. citizens.

An executive order Trump signed in February 2025 to limit immigrants from receiving benefits, said it was necessary to “prevent taxpayer resources from acting as a magnet and fueling illegal immigration to the United States, and to ensure, to the maximum extent permitted by law, that no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens.”

In an Aug. 26 statement to States Newsroom, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the “Trump Administration is putting Americans first.”

“As promised, President Trump secured the border, cracked down on illegal immigration, and put Americans first,” Rogers said.

Pace accelerating

Trump’s first administration was partially defined by its aggressive immigration policy, including visa restrictions, a travel ban from certain countries, a higher bar for asylum cases in immigration court, and forcing asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their asylum cases were pending. 

But the rate at which the second Trump administration is pursuing immigration-related actions is far surpassing the first, according to an analysis from the Migration Policy Institute. 

In its first year, the administration took more than 500 immigration actions, including executive orders and regulations, compared to 472 actions in all four years of the first administration, according to MPI’s analysis.

Welfare restrictions

Federal public benefits are generally denied to “not qualified” immigrants, under a welfare reform law enacted during the Clinton administration known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, or PRWORA.

The law limits certain public benefits for individuals who do not meet a specific immigration status or eligibility requirements. 

Over the years, Congress has expanded certain immigrant categories and federal agencies have interpreted which programs are covered under PRWORA.

But Trump reversed that trend.

Last February, he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to review any programs that benefit immigrants and reverse any expansions. 

Following the order, the departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education, Labor, HUD and the IRS either rescinded notices that clarified eligibility or issued reinterpretations of PRWORA.

HHS in July 2025 designated 13 additional programs, including the early-childhood Head Start program, that are subject to PRWORA qualifications. 

HUD in October restricted certain housing programs and grants based on immigration status. 

USDA now considers certain licenses, grants, payments and loan programs to fall under the law’s requirements.

The Labor Department updated a policy that now forces noncitizens with temporary work authorization to go through reverification every three months in order to participate in a program to help access employment or education.

And the Department of Education issued a notice that certain higher education programs, such as Pell grants, loans and workforce programs fall under “federal public benefits.” 

A preliminary injunction currently prevents the Trump administration’s new interpretation of PRWORA from taking effect.

The FCC, which is supposed to operate as an independent federal agency but has shown a deference to Trump during his second term, issued a proposed rule in April that would limit the Lifeline program, which provides a discount on phone services for low-income consumers, to U.S. citizens and immigrants with a “qualified” status. 

That group includes lawful permanent residents, refugees, people granted asylum, certain survivors of trafficking and victims of abuse. All other immigrants, including those with some form of legal status, are considered “not qualified.” 

Livelihoods at stake

While the second Trump administration has expanded efforts to limit benefits, it has also moved to restrict access to the workforce in a couple of policies.

The SBA in March banned noncitizens from applying for small business loans. 

And the DOT issued a rule that limits the types of visas which can be used to obtain a Commercial Driver’s License for foreign-born truck drivers while pushing for veterans to fill the void. 

That approach was novel, David Bier, the director of immigration studies of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, said.

“There were certainly some benefits that they attempted to restrict more on the welfare side of things,” Bier said of the first Trump administration. 

“But I can’t think of an instance where they attempted to try to use their regulatory authority to prevent people from being able to engage in certain occupations that they would otherwise be eligible for if they were authorized to work.”

Restrictions in GOP megabill

The massive tax cuts and spending package that the Republican-controlled Congress passed last year also limits safety net programs for immigrants.

The “big, beautiful” law restricted eligibility for immigrants in Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Affordable Care Act coverage, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The bill struck several categories of non-citizens who were previously eligible for SNAP, such as immigrants with longstanding humanitarian status like refugees, asylees, parolees and those with suspended deportation status. 

It also implemented tighter proof-of-citizenship or immigration verification requirements for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, while also discouraging states from covering insurance for immigrants until that status is verified. 

The law also bars several other groups of immigrants from ACA subsidies. 

Immigrants with asylum or a pending claim, in the country on a humanitarian basis, who hold Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, or who an immigration judge has deemed their home country too dangerous to return are ineligible, under the law.

The Trump administration’s focus on limiting safety net programs to noncitizens has produced a chilling effect. 

An estimated one in ten adult immigrants stopped participating in government benefits for food, housing or healthcare because they were afraid to enroll in benefits they qualified for, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security is planning to drastically increase the fee for hiring high-skilled foreign workers within the United States to $100,000, according to a preview of a proposed rule published Monday. 

The administration noted in the Federal Register that it plans to use the fee to “serve as a dedicated revenue mechanism to help recover a portion of the federal government’s costs of administering the lawful immigration system, including activities carried out by DHS” and the departments of Justice, State and Labor.

Currently, it costs anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 for an employer to hire a highly skilled foreign worker through the H-1B visa program. Congress created the program in the 1990s and visas are capped annually at 65,000, with an additional 20,000 for foreign workers who graduate with a masters or doctoral degree from a U.S. institution.

A federal judge in June struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to increase the H-1B visa to $100,000 for foreign workers hired outside the U.S. 

Workers on a temporary H-1B visa work in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medicine or education.  

Employers use the H-1B program to hire foreign workers who have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree for up to three years, but the temporary visa can be extended for up to six.  

Last year, the Trump administration imposed a one-time $100,000 H-1B visa fee to employers in an effort to prevent high-skill jobs going to foreigners instead of U.S. citizens. However, the program is used to fill high-skill jobs that are difficult to fill with American workers. 

As more states seek ways to limit immigration enforcement, a Stateline analysis shows one tactic has had an effect: making it more difficult for local law enforcement to hand over people they are holding in city or county jails to federal immigration authorities.

The analysis found that states with strict non-cooperation policies — Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Washington state — have the lowest rates of immigration arrests in jails.

The highest rates were generally in states that limit or bar so-called sanctuary policies. Those states include Wyoming, West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama.

New Mexico, a border state, also was one of the five states with the highest local jail arrest rate despite having some statewide policies limiting cooperation. The state ethics commission sued the state corrections department in July charging violations of a state law banning most cooperation.

However, early threats from the Trump administration to target sanctuary states for more street arrests had uneven results through March 10, the latest data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and obtained by the California-based Deportation Data Project. The analysis includes arrests since Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of the second Trump administration.

President Donald Trump announced March 5 he would replace high-profile Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and that Markwayne Mullin would take over March 31. Mullin has pledged a more low-key approach to ramping up immigration enforcement.

Stateline’s analysis doesn’t reflect a new wave of arrests starting in June that has pushed arrests to new highs, or new airport arrests in recent months cracking down on people with expired visas. But the data does show an administration struggling to get arrest numbers up everywhere, said Jacob Kang-Brown, a criminologist who did a similar analysis in October for the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based think tank that seeks to reduce incarceration.

Last year border czar Tom Homan said he would “flood the zone” with extra street enforcement in sanctuary cities. States without sanctuary policies, such as Florida, would be treated differently, he said.  “We don’t have that problem in Florida, where every sheriff is working with us,” Homan said.

But Kang-Brown said cooperative states did not get a break from street operations and raids.

“They don’t stop doing stuff in the community just because they can get in the jails. It was very widespread arrests around the country, even in states that collaborated enthusiastically and were pushing ICE for even more enforcement, like Florida.” Kang-Brown said.

In the Stateline analysis, Florida’s rate of street arrests ranked 40th, about the same as Washington state, which has restrictions on immigration arrests at jails, and higher than Connecticut, which has similar restrictions. Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont rejects the sanctuary label, calling the restrictions “clear rules for cooperation with federal immigration authorities.”

Some states with policies restricting jail transfers to ICE did see high rates of street arrests last winter amid attacks on what the administration often calls  “sanctuary politicians”  in those states. Maine, Minnesota and the District of Columbia were among  the 10 states with the highest rates of street arrests as a share of noncitizens, and many of those arrested did not have criminal records.

Operation Metro Surge, concentrated in Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul over the winter, ended in two killings by federal agents and hundreds of millions of dollars in business losses.

But cooperative states also saw high rates of street arrests: Seven of the 10 states with the highest rates of street arrests as a share of noncitizens were ones with cooperative policies. The very highest was West Virginia, where there were only 17,100 noncitizens counted in 2024 but hundreds were arrested in a single “surge team” operation in January.

After criticism from the Trump administration, some states have backed off some of the more far-reaching sanctuary policies, but others have been emboldened by the unpopularity of Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Stateline’s analysis underscores the fact that local jails, and how they handle ICE detainer requests to hold inmates for immigration arrests, are a powerful tool.

ICE often criticizes cities and states with sanctuary policies for releasing violent criminals, but only a small fraction of arrestees are violent criminals and a large number have only immigration violations.

“Generally if someone poses a real threat to safety, public safety or national security, that detainer is generally respected,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank specializing in immigration research.

But, she added, “if someone got a ding on a speeding ticket and otherwise has a clean record, then there are some places that are not going to hand that person over or hold that person for ICE.”

Report disputes claims about recent ICE arrests in WV, says 75% of immigrants had no criminal record

ICE made a record 51,000 arrests in July but hasn’t released detailed information by state since March.

For all ICE arrests combined, the highest rates were in Wyoming, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and New Mexico, all having more than 300 arrests per 10,000 noncitizens through March.

The street arrests pulled in more people without criminal records — 81% of the Washington, D.C., street arrests were for immigration-related offenses only and the share was about two-thirds or more in 14 other states with statewide sanctuary policies.

Some states have tried to strike a balance, allowing jail transfers to ICE for a list of crimes, including charged crimes as well as convictions, and for court orders of removal, which can be issued for some immigration offenses.

In New Jersey, the state legislature backed off some proposed changes that would have made it harder for ICE to make arrests in local jails. The law as signed in March maintained controversial exceptions for immigrants with removal orders and for immigrants facing charges and well as convictions among a list of serious crimes.

Passage of the law came after the Trump administration in March highlighted the case of a New Jersey man charged with sex crimes against a child younger than 15 years old, calling it a “New Jersey nightmare” and claiming the man might have qualified for release under state policies at the time, despite a detainer request. Court records indicate the man was never released and remains in an Ocean County jail after pleading guilty pending sentencing in September.

In some states, including Maryland, the Trump administration and local sheriffs have challenged policies against extending local jail time or responding to immigration detainers. Courts have ruled that such detainers are voluntary requests that states and cities may turn down legally, and there are preliminary injunctions in California and Washington state against withholding some or all federal funding because of it. Those injunctions are under appeal.

A similar lawsuit by the administration against New Jersey cities was dismissed in June.

That hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from hectoring state and municipalities it sees as overly lax on detainer policies.

“Sanctuary policies continue to disregard U.S. immigration law and put communities at risk by releasing illegal aliens prone to criminal activity into our communities,” said Robert Guadian, the Washington, D.C., field office director for ICE’s enforcement and removals office, in an Aug. 6 statement. Guadian complained that two young men had been released from a Maryland jail in Prince George’s County after criminal charges were dismissed. They were later arrested by ICE in separate traffic stops.

Delaware’s legislature in June approved a bill, now awaiting Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer’s signature, with exceptions only for certain crime convictions.

New Mexico State Ethics Commission sues state Corrections secretary over probation ICE referrals

Even as the Trump administration has been frustrated by legal attempts to force more compliance with detainers, it’s been more successful with encouraging participation in the 287(g) program that allows local officers to investigate immigration themselves and help turn prisoners over to ICE. The programs are in 39 states, but are heavily concentrated in Texas and Florida.

“ICE is actually paying the salaries of some local sheriffs or law enforcement, and that’s a huge savings for their jurisdictions,” said Putzel-Kavanaugh, of the Migration Policy Institute. “For a local town or sheriff that could be huge.”

The tension between federal immigration authorities and local jail authorities has been around for decades, noted Graber, of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Local and state authorities have the best possible awareness of local crime, she noted, and fingerprints from their arrest get transmitted automatically to immigration authorities to choose candidates for arrest and deportation.

“ICE has been pursuing the local law enforcement’s broad reach into communities and their ability to surveil the public at a much greater level for a long time,” Graber said. “That’s why they want instant information about every person who’s arrested.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) has joined 19 other states, including the commonwealths of Massachusetts and Virginia, in a lawsuit pushing back against the Trump administration’s attempts to attach immigration enforcement requirements to federal grants supporting state and local public safety efforts.

“Threatening to cut funding that supports law enforcement if states don’t agree to unlawful conditions is an abuse of the Trump administration’s authority,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement. “This funding should be distributed to the states, not improperly used as a bargaining chip.”

The lawsuit states that the grant programs, which have been active for decades, “provide more than a billion dollars to States annually to address some of the most serious threats to the safety of their residents: from gang violence to drug trafficking to sexual assault to all kinds of violent crimes.” The funds, which are enacted by Congress, are used “to assist more than 8.5 million crime victims; pay more than 200,000 claims for losses suffered by crime victims; and fund ongoing criminal justice and public safety operations, such as drug task forces, crisis intervention programs, and youth recidivism reduction efforts, in all 50 states and over 1,000 local government units nationwide,” the lawsuit states.

Under President Donald Trump, states which depend on these funds have been advised to either cooperate with Trump’s immigration priorities or face losing access to those funds. Calling this a “brazen attempt to manipulate critical funding for law enforcement and crime victims to strong-arm States into supporting the Administration’s civil immigration policies,” the lawsuit asserts that the Trump administration is running afoul with governing principles of the United States: that a federal agency “has no power to act … unless and until Congress confers power upon it.” Since Congress has the power of the purse, it decides what criteria executive branch agencies — like the Justice Department — must use when awarding grants, the suit argues. 

The lawsuit also accuses the Trump administration of not considering how denying these grants would undermine public safety across the country. “Action by this Court is urgently needed,” the lawsuit states, asserting  that it is illegal for the administration to impose these conditions on the public safety grants. 

In a press release, the Wisconsin DOJ said Monday that last year the Trump administration declared that states wouldn’t be able to access Victims Crime Act funds unless they cooperated with the administration’s hardline deportation agenda, affecting $1.3 billion in grants.. A coalition of states sued and the administration reversed its action and released the money. 

This year, however, the immigration conditions have been applied funding for  juvenile justice and law enforcement, and amount to over $6 million in Wisconsin alone —  a loss of $3.2 million in grant assistance, $2.1 million for  a crisis intervention program, and  $800,000 for  juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, according to DOJ. 

Although 20 sheriff offices across Wisconsin partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through the 287(g) program, many communities have mixed relationships with the controversial federal agency. Some police departments may still cooperate with immigration enforcement even without an official 287(g) program. Others have policies prohibiting officers and jails from participating in immigration enforcement. 

Despite public pushback, immigration agents have conducted surges and arrests in neighborhoods, courthouses, and elsewhere since Trump returned to office. In Milwaukee County, where some of these enforcement efforts have played out, local elected officials have enacted  local ordinances and policies to curb the effect ICE operations have on public safety in the city. These, however, have invited further confrontation with the Trump administration. 

The number of refugees admitted to the United States during the first 10 months of the fiscal year is on pace to hit its lowest level on record, according to a new analysis.

The new numbers reflect a steep decline in refugee admissions since President Donald Trump began his second term, according to a new analysis of State Department data by the Pew Research Center.

The U.S. has admitted 10,258 refugees — nearly all of them white South Africans — in the first 10 months of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. During fiscal 2025, part of which overlapped with President Joe Biden’s term, the U.S. admitted 38,102 refugees. In the previous year, during which Biden was president the entire time, 100,034 refugees were admitted.

The Trump administration, which has sought to limit immigration of all types, has capped refugee admissions for fiscal 2026 at 17,500, the lowest level in the past 25 years.

Refugee admissions have fluctuated over time. They declined sharply after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when President George W. Bush temporarily halted application processing. And they fell again during Trump’s first term, when he restricted immigration from majority-Muslim countries. However, the U.S. admitted an average of 50,000 refugees per year between 2001 and 2026.

In February 2025, Trump issued an executive order prioritizing refugee admissions for Afrikaners — white South Africans descended from Dutch, German and French colonial settlers. Afrikaners were the primary architects of apartheid, a rigid system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994.

About 80% of South Africans are Black. Trump’s order asserts that the country’s Black leaders have discriminated against the Afrikaners and demonstrated a “shocking disregard” for their rights by seizing their farmland without compensation. South African leaders deny that Afrikaners have been subjected to systemic persecution.

In recent years, the majority of refugees to the U.S. have come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has seen ongoing war and displacement. Many refugees also have come from countries such as Syria, Ukraine, Bhutan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Venezuela, Eritrea, Myanmar and Guatemala.

In a 2025 Pew Research Center survey of 10,357 Americans, about 36% of respondents said that it was very or extremely important to take in refugees escaping violence in other countries. Another 39% said it was somewhat important.

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Democratic lawmakers proposed nearly 250 bills in state capitols this year seeking to limit federal immigration efforts as they sought to push back against what they view as federal government overreach. 

In a new report tallying 2026 action, State Futures, a nonprofit coordinating hundreds of Democratic lawmakers across the states, tracked 242 pieces of such legislation introduced across 32 states. About a fifth of them passed. Most of the measures address the ramped up immigration enforcement efforts that have defined President Donald Trump’s second term. 

Some of those bills have faced Republican opposition and White House challenges. But Democratic governors have also raised concerns and even vetoed some measures, saying they supported their aims, but worried they could have unintended consequences and invite litigation.

The bills sought to ban the masking of immigration officers, protect against immigration enforcement in sensitive places such as schools and hospitals and enact new zoning regulations on private detention facilities, among other issues.

State Futures said 53 bills passed in 17 states this year, though several were vetoed or still await action from governors. Many of those bills face legal review as courts weigh the limits of state authority to regulate federal action.

But lawmakers say those numbers underscore the left’s growing embrace of federalism — the division of power between federal and state governments — that has gained traction during the second Trump presidency.

Rhode Island state Sen. Tiara Mack said many Democrats, including herself, have been wary of championing states’ rights, an ideology that evokes odious memories of slavery and segregation. But she said constituents are demanding action from state leaders to oppose the White House’s hardline immigration arrest and deportation efforts.

“This new landscape requires legislators to really own the narrative and own the reality that federalism is something that we can use as a tool to strengthen protections for our state,” she said, “and we have to work with states across the country.”

Mack is a co-chair of State Futures’ federal response working group that shares legislative ideas with state lawmakers across the country. This year, she was among those sponsoring Rhode Island legislation that seeks to protect people from immigration arrests while attending court proceedings. Signed into law in June, that law says violators of the protections can be held in contempt of court and can face a lawsuit from those arrested without a judicial order or warrant. 

Virginia Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed a similar bill that would have prohibited immigration enforcement in courthouses, schools and hospitals. In her veto message, the governor said she appreciated the intention of the bill but worried it would put security guards and law enforcement in the “untenable position” of choosing whether to break federal or state law. 

Another Delaware measure is currently awaiting action from Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer.  

Mack said lawmakers are increasingly coordinating across state lines, learning from legislative wins and failures in other capitols. As an example, she pointed to a California law aimed at banning federal and state agents from wearing masks.

A judge blocked that law earlier this year because it exempted state law enforcement, saying it therefore discriminated against federal agents. A similar proposal in Rhode Island, which was held in committee this session, seeks to stop all law enforcement officers from concealing their identity.

Oregon governor signs slew of bills protecting immigrants amid federal crackdown

Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek signed eight laws this April seeking to defend immigrant rights. Those laws protect against enforcement efforts in schools and hospitals, ensure individuals’ data remains confidential from the feds and allow people to sue the federal government for violating the law.

In Colorado, lawmakers this year expanded the health department’s authority to inspect immigration detention facilities and required compliance with state health and safety standards and reporting rules. That law is currently being challenged by a private prison operator as state officials demand more access and information regarding at least one tuberculosis case among detainees.

Colorado state Sen. Mike Weissman, one of the sponsors of that measure, said he’s worked with Democratic colleagues across conservative and liberal states more than ever before to oppose federal government efforts.

“We all talk because we all have the same concerns,” he said, “and that is to protect the basic freedoms of our people from an absolutely out of control federal regime.”

This story was updated with the number of bills that passed as of Aug. 13. Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice has sued New York, Connecticut and Vermont over laws that allow immigrants in the country without permanent legal status to pay in-state college tuition in the states where they live.

The suits, filed Aug. 10, are part of a larger push from the Trump administration to go after states with such policies, as the administration seeks to curb any benefits that could be extended to people without permanent legal status.  

Since President Donald Trump re-took office, the DOJ has sued 17 states over laws that allow noncitizen students who meet certain requirements access to in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status. 

In five of those lawsuits the DOJ filed — targeting Texas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Illinois — courts have already struck down the laws. All of those states, except for Illinois, had joined with the federal government rather than defend their laws. 

Beyond New York, Connecticut and Vermont, lawsuits are also pending in California, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Virginia.

The lawsuits argue that the policies allow students without permanent legal status to pay drastically lower tuition for public education than U.S. citizens from other states.

“This is a simple matter of federal law: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the DOJ’s Civil Division said in a statement regarding the New York, Connecticut and Vermont lawsuits. 

“This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country,” Shumate said.  

Landscape of state laws

At least 20 states and Washington, D.C., offer in-state tuition to “the states’ undocumented students,” according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, a project of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. 

Roughly 525,000 “undocumented students” are enrolled in colleges and universities across the U.S., according to the Portal. An estimated 129,900 “undocumented students” are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. 

DACA is intended to help people brought into the country without legal documentation as children. The program, created by the Obama administration in 2012, protects participants from deportation and allows them to receive work permits and obtain driver’s licenses. 

Five states, Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, Ohio and Texas, limit in-state tuition access to DACA recipients, according to the Portal.

Ongoing court battles threaten DACA recipients in Texas with the possibility of losing their ability to obtain a work permit. 

‘Unprecedented’

Diego Sánchez, vice president of policy and strategy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, said the DOJ’s efforts to pursue states that offer in-state tuition benefits to students without permanent legal status is “unprecedented.”

“It’s a coordinated federal effort to dismantle state tuition equity policies that have existed for decades,” Sánchez told States Newsroom.

Sánchez added that the policies “do not provide free college or special tuition discounts — they generally allow students who attended and graduated from high school in the state and meet additional state requirements to pay the same in-state tuition rate as the classmates they grew up with.” 

The students “still have to apply, they still have to be admitted, pay tuition and meet the same academic requirements as everyone else,” he said. “The state has already invested in these students … these are benefits that don’t only apply (to) undocumented students.” 

DOJ goes after Texas first

The DOJ’s lawsuits came after Trump signed an executive order in April 2025 that calls on the U.S. attorney general to stop the enforcement of state laws and policies “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens that are unlawful, preempted by Federal law, or otherwise unenforceable, including State laws that provide in-State higher education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-State American citizens.” 

Texas was the first state the DOJ pursued over such policies. 

The Justice Department challenged in June 2025 the Lone Star State’s 2001 law — the first of its kind in the country — signed by former Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican. 

Rather than defend the law, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Trump-aligned Republican, sided with the DOJ to try to permanently block the state law and signed an agreement the same day the DOJ filed suit. A federal judge then blocked the Texas law.  

A federal appeals court in July rejected an attempt from two advocacy groups, a Texas community college and a student to intervene in the case and defend the Texas law. The appeals effort came after the federal judge had earlier rejected the groups’ attempt to intervene. 

“It’s not the end of the road yet, but it’s been an uphill battle,” said Efrén Olivares, vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, one of several public interest groups that sought to intervene on behalf of one of the advocacy groups, the Texas community college and the student. 

“It’s a shame because for the last year, thousands of kids who, all they’re doing is trying to get a college education to better themselves and their families, are now prevented from doing so by exorbitant tuition.”