Week of April 22–28, 2026

A federal appeals court blocked a California law requiring law enforcement officers working in the state, including federal immigration agents, to display visible identification.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit had already put the measure on hold briefly. Its new ruling agrees with the Trump administration that the mandate is likely unconstitutional and keeps enforcement paused until the court resolves the case, which may take months.

The Justice Department sued California and Governor Gavin Newsom after he signed the No Vigilantes Act, which says that non-uniformed law enforcement operating in the state “shall visibly display identification.” The law followed the expansion of immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area last summer, when agents frequently operated masked and without visible identification.

Source: The Hill

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is denying employment-based immigrant petitions at much higher rates, according to an analysis of agency data by the National Foundation for American Policy.

The denial rate in the EB-1 extraordinary ability category nearly doubled, from 25.6 percent to 46.6 percent, between the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 and the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. Denials of national interest waivers in the EB-2 category rose from 38.8 percent to 64.3 percent over the same period.

The figures come alongside other restrictions on skilled immigration, including a $100,000 fee on new H-1B entries and a proposed rule that would raise required wage levels. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee on April 16.

Source: Forbes

The justices heard about 90 minutes of argument in Blanche v. Lau, a case about how immigration officers treat lawful permanent residents who have been accused, but not convicted, of a crime that could make them removable.

Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national who became a permanent resident in 2007, was charged in New Jersey in 2012 with selling counterfeit clothing. When he returned from a short trip abroad that June, officers paroled him into the country rather than admitting him, citing the pending charge. That classification let the Department of Homeland Security pursue removal on inadmissibility grounds, where the government's burden of proof is lower than in deportation proceedings.

Lau pleaded guilty in 2013. The 2nd Circuit ruled that he had been improperly classified.

Source: SCOTUSblog

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a congressional committee that the administration's “gold card” visa has been approved for one person since it launched in December. He said hundreds more applications are in the queue.

The program lets a foreign national live and work in the United States after paying a $15,000 processing fee and contributing at least $1 million, with a path to citizenship. Corporations can pay $2 million to sponsor a foreign-born employee, plus a 1 percent annual maintenance fee. It is meant to replace the EB-5 program, which granted visas to people who invested about $1 million in a business employing at least 10 people.

Lutnick had said days after the launch that the government sold $1.3 billion “worth” of cards, and told a cabinet meeting a year ago that the program would raise $1 trillion.

Source: AP News

Three of Texas's largest cities have revised how their police departments handle Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests after Governor Greg Abbott threatened to withhold state public safety money.

Austin is updating its general orders to say officers who encounter an ICE administrative warrant should contact the agency “when operationally feasible” to check whether it is valid, ask how long agents need to arrive, and avoid spending an unreasonable amount of time assisting. A supervisor decides what counts as reasonable, weighing available resources and whether the person is known to be dangerous.

Austin stood to lose about $2.5 million in grants used for sexual assault evidence testing and victim services. Houston faced the loss of more than $110 million and Dallas more than $32 million, plus $55 million in World Cup security funding.

Source: The Texas Tribune

A 2023 Texas law allowing state police to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally can take effect after the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction that had blocked it for years.

The court ruled 10-7 that the plaintiffs, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, American Gateways and El Paso County, lacked standing to sue, and did not reach the underlying constitutional questions. “These Plaintiffs voluntarily incurred costs to advocate for clients,” the order said, which “falls far short of conferring standing.”

Senate Bill 4 creates a state misdemeanor for crossing into Texas from Mexico outside a port of entry and directs magistrates to order those arrested to leave the country. Immigration enforcement has historically been a federal responsibility. Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a win for public safety.

Source: The Texas Tribune

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked the executive order suspending access to asylum at the southern border, a central part of the administration's border policy.

The panel held that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives people the right to apply for asylum at the border and that the president cannot remove them under “procedures of his own making.” Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote that the power to suspend the entry of specified foreign nationals by proclamation does not carry implicit authority to override the statute's mandatory removal process.

Judge Justin Walker dissented in part, arguing the administration may issue broad asylum denials, but agreed it cannot deport people to countries where they face persecution or strip them of protective procedures.

Source: PBS NewsHour

The Supreme Court will hear argument on April 29 in Mullin v. Doe, on whether the Department of Homeland Security lawfully ended Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and Syria. It is the last regularly scheduled argument of the 2025-26 term.

Congress created TPS in 1990. It allows the department to let citizens of a designated country stay and work in the United States when they cannot safely return because of armed conflict, natural disaster or other extraordinary conditions. Designations run for set periods and extend automatically for six months if a decision is not published at least 60 days before expiration.

Syria was designated in March 2012 and renewed repeatedly. The court has already allowed the department to strip protected status from Venezuelans in two interim orders.

Source: SCOTUSblog

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests peaked at nearly 40,000 nationwide in December and stayed close to that level in January, according to data provided to the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley and analyzed by the Associated Press.

After immigration officers killed two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis in late January, and amid growing criticism of enforcement tactics, senior officials were replaced and arrests fell by an average of nearly 12 percent.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who had described the strategy as “turn and burn,” was pushed aside. Border czar Tom Homan was sent to the Twin Cities and announced a drawdown of agents in Minnesota. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was fired in early March.

Source: AP News

President Trump endorsed renaming Immigration and Customs Enforcement as National Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or NICE.

He shared on Truth Social a screenshot of a post on X reading, “I want Trump to change ICE to NICE (National Immigration and Customs Enforcement) so the media has to say NICE agents all day everyday.”

Renaming the agency would not by itself change its authorities, which are set by statute. The agency has drawn sustained criticism during the administration's enforcement campaign. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington wrote earlier in the month that ICE was “terrorizing our communities, detaining U.S. citizens, and letting people die in custody,” and called for abolishing it.

Source: Fox News

California plans to share detailed driver's license records, including those of immigrants without legal status, with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a nonprofit whose board is made up of state motor vehicle officials.

The data would go into the association's State-to-State Verification System and its SPEXS platform, which let motor vehicle agencies and their contractors check whether a person holds a license elsewhere. Advocacy groups briefed by the Department of Motor Vehicles and Governor Gavin Newsom's office said the records will show whether a holder has a Social Security number, which can identify people in the country without authorization.

State officials say the sharing is required to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005, and that otherwise the Department of Homeland Security may stop accepting California licenses at airports. More than one million unauthorized immigrants hold California licenses.

Source: CalMatters

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled 3-0 against the administration's policy of holding most people facing deportation without any opportunity for release on bond, including those with no criminal record and decades of residence in the country.

Judge Joseph Bianco, a Trump appointee, wrote that the government's reading of decades-old statutes was implausible and would create “the broadest mass detention-without-bond mandate in our Nation's history for millions of noncitizens.” He was joined by Judges Jose Cabranes and Alison Nathan.

It is the first appellate ruling against the policy, although district judges around the country have found it unlawful. The 5th and 8th Circuits sided with the administration in divided panels, a split that could send the question to the Supreme Court.

Source: Politico