• Footage, Documents at Odds with DHS Accounts of Immigration Enforcement Incidents

    As a growing number of encounters between civilians and DHS agents are scrutinized in court records and on social media, federal officials are returning to a familiar response: self-defense. Often, this line of defense is contradicted by the evidence. Still, as Trump’s crackdown intensifies, people face steep barriers to holding federal agents accountable.

  • States, Cities Are Hard-Pressed to Fight Violent ICE Arrest Tactics

    State leaders who want to curb the increasingly violent arrest tactics of immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere are struggling to push back. Potential approaches include state civil rights laws and a refusal to cooperate.

  • ICE Is Pushing the Legal Envelope

    ICE’s legal advisory – asserting that ICE agents may enter private homes with an administrative, rather than a judicial, warrant — rests on arguable, but exceedingly fragile, legal foundations. Administrative warrants, consent, and exigent circumstances can justify certain actions, but none supports a general authority to enter homes without a judicial warrant. The legal debate is not about immigration policy but about whether the executive branch can erode one of the Constitution’s most settled protections.

  • ICE Is Using Medicaid Data to Find Out Where Immigrants Live

    A recent court ruling has cleared the way for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to resume using states’ Medicaid data to find people who are in the country illegally. States fear immigrants will shy away from seeking health care.

  • Small Boats and Shifting Threats: Britain Can't Keep Fighting Yesterday's Battle in the Channel

    U.K. core challenge today is not simply the volume of arrivals, but the rapidly evolving criminal ecosystems that facilitate them. Smuggling networks are adjusting faster than governmental policy tools, by shifting routes, exploiting digital platforms, and experimenting with new forms of coercion and revenue generation. Unless the UK and its European partners update their approach in 2026, they risk merely managing arrivals rather than disrupting the criminal systems that drive them.

  • New Ban Bars Half of Legal Immigrants, Even Citizens’ Spouses and Kids

    The State Department announced it will suspend immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries starting this week. This ban builds on prior bans, and it brings the number of banned nationalities up to 93, or 42 percent of those in the world. Congress specifically barred discrimination based on national origin, but the courts the administration have invented ways around that prohibition.

  • DOJ’s Dangerous Silence in the Face of Federal Immigration Agents’ Violent Tactics

    The killing in Minneapolis is but the latest in a series of incidents involving federal immigration agents’ use of apparent excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and federal criminal law. Samantha Trepel writes that DOJ has remained disturbingly silent through months of these tactics. “This silence is a dangerous abdication of DOJ’s authority and responsibility.” Unfortunately, DOJ’s current abdication of responsibility “puts communities at needless risk and undermines the rule of law itself.”

  • How a Manhattan Institute Comparison of Immigrant Incarceration Rates Is Rhetorically Misleading

    I compared incarceration rates between Somali immigrants, native-born Americans, all legal immigrants, and all illegal immigrants in the 18–54 age range. The Somali adult (18-54) immigrant incarceration rate in the US in 2023 was slightly below that of native-born Americans, according to American Community Survey.

  • ICE Killing of Driver in Minneapolis Involved Tactics Many Police Departments Warn Against − but Not ICE Itself

    Debates over deadly force are often contentious, but for the most part there is consensus on one point: Policing should reflect a commitment to valuing human life and prioritizing its protection. One expression of that commitment is the prohibition on shooting at moving vehicles – but ICE’s policy on shooting at moving vehicles lacks a clear instruction for officers to get out of the way of moving vehicles where feasible. It’s an omission at odds with generally recognized best practices in policing.

  • How Many People Have Been Shot in ICE Raids?

    The Trace has identified 16 incidents in which immigration agents opened fire and another 15 incidents in which agents held someone at gunpoint since the crackdown began. At least three people have been shot observing or documenting immigration raids, and five people have been shot while driving away from traffic stops or evading an enforcement action.

  • Trump Canceled Temporary Legal Status for More than 1.5M Immigrants in 2025

    Since Inauguration Day, more than 1.5 million immigrants have either lost or will lose their temporary legal status, including their work authorizations and deportation protections. It’s the most rapid loss in legal status for immigrants in recent United States history.

  • “Construction Can’t Continue": South Texas Builders Say ICE Arrests Have Upended Industry

    More than 300 people attended an impromptu meeting that industry leaders in the Rio Grande Valley hosted to draw attention to the chilling effect ICE arrests have had on construction.

  • An Ever Larger Share of ICE’s Arrested Immigrants Have No Criminal Record

    Immigration arrests under the Trump administration continued to increase, but rather than the convicted criminals the administration has said it’s focused on, an ever-larger share of those arrests were for solely immigration violations.

  • Trump Administration’s Immigrant Detention Policy Broadly Rejected by Federal Judges

    In response to the Trump administration’s practice of rounding up and jailing immigrants without a hearing — a departure from fundamental constitutional protections — federal judges have systematically rejected the administration’s attempt to drastically expand who can be locked up without a hearing while awaiting deportation proceedings.

  • How Does Immigration Affect the U.S. Economy?

    Immigrants have long played a critical role in the U.S. economy, filling labor gaps, driving innovation, and exercising consumer spending power. But political debate over their economic contributions has ramped up under the second Trump administration.