Week of August 27 – September 2, 2025
Reconstructed. This week was compiled in September 2026 from the reporting published at the time, each item linked to its source. Rules and figures reflect that week; several have changed since.
Abrego Garcia files a second asylum claim to block removal to Uganda
Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia told a federal judge that he is seeking asylum in the United States, filing the application in the Maryland immigration court. It is his second such request; the first was denied in 2019.
The administration says the 30-year-old is a member of MS-13, which he denies, and has stated it intends to deport him to Uganda. He was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March despite an immigration order barring his removal there, and was later returned to face criminal charges.
If granted, asylum would provide a green card and a path to citizenship. The application will be decided by the immigration courts, which sit within the Department of Justice rather than the independent judiciary.
Source: AP News
Deportation flights reach record levels as carriers obscure aircraft details
Tom Cartwright, a retired financial officer who has tracked removal flights since January 2020, counted 1,214 deportation-related flights in July, the highest monthly figure he has recorded. About 80 percent are flown by three carriers: GlobalX, Eastern Air Express and Avelo Airlines.
Volunteers who monitor flights at airports such as King County International in Seattle say airlines have begun using dummy call signs and blocking tail numbers from public tracking websites. Monitors now share information between groups and draw on an open-source exchange of aircraft transmissions.
The flights carry people to other domestic airports for transfer to overseas services, or across the border, mostly to Central American countries and Mexico. ICE rarely discloses flight information, so the monitoring often helps families locate relatives who have been removed.
Source: AP News
Justice Department drops experience requirements for temporary immigration judges
A rule that took effect allows the Justice Department to appoint attorneys with no immigration law experience as temporary immigration judges. Previously a temporary appointee had to have served as an immigration judge or another government judge, or to have at least ten years of legal experience in immigration law.
The department said in the Federal Register notice that removing the categorical prohibitions lets the director and attorney general consider highly qualified candidates, and that the aim is to staff the courts sufficiently to reduce and ultimately eliminate the backlog of pending cases.
Immigration judges sit within the executive branch rather than the independent judiciary, so the department controls both their appointment and their removal.
Source: NBC News
Small firm with no detention experience wins $1.2 billion Fort Bliss contract
The contract to build and run what the government says will be the country's largest immigration detention complex, worth up to $1.2 billion, went to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small business with no listed experience operating a correctional facility that had never held a federal contract above $16 million.
The company has no functioning website and gives as its address a house in suburban Virginia owned by a 77-year-old retired Navy flight officer. The Pentagon has declined to release the contract or explain why the firm was chosen over a dozen other bidders, and at least one competitor has filed a complaint.
The tent camp at Fort Bliss in West Texas began accepting detainees last week and is expected to hold up to 5,000 people. A member of Congress who toured the site questioned the award.
Source: AP News
Judge questions continued detention of a Spanish-language journalist
U.S. Magistrate Judge Benjamin Cheesbro questioned whether Mario Guevara, a Spanish-language journalist arrested while covering a June protest near Atlanta, can remain in immigration detention after the criminal charges against him were dropped.
Guevara's lawyers asked for his immediate release from a detention center in southeast Georgia. Their petition argues the government is violating his First and Fifth Amendment rights, punishing him for filming police, which is lawful, and imposing an unlawful prior restraint because he cannot report while held.
Scarlet Kim of the American Civil Liberties Union said he is neither a danger nor a flight risk. A government lawyer said ICE has broad discretion to detain Guevara, a Salvadoran national who does not hold a U.S. visa.
Source: NBC News
DHS proposes fixed admission periods for student and exchange visitor visas
The Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule that would end duration of status for F academic students, J exchange visitors and I representatives of foreign media, replacing it with admission for a fixed period and a formal extension of stay procedure.
Under the current framework these categories are admitted for as long as they maintain their program or assignment. The proposal would require an application to extend, with rules governing status and employment authorization while such an application is pending.
Comments on the rule are due by September 29, 2025, with comments on the associated information collection due by October 27. The notice sets out how F-1 status and work authorization would be treated while an extension application is pending.
Source: Federal Register
DHS asks a naval base outside Chicago to support immigration operations
The Department of Homeland Security asked Naval Station Great Lakes, about 35 miles north of Chicago, for limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure and other logistical needs for its operations, base spokesperson Matt Mogle said.
The request follows the deployment of National Guard troops to Washington and, two months earlier, to Los Angeles. Details of the administration's plans for Chicago have not been made public.
City officials said they are preparing for a range of scenarios, from troops assisting with immigration arrests to patrolling the streets. Chicago is the third largest city in the country.
Source: AP News
Ninth Circuit upholds order preserving TPS for Venezuelans
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld a district court ruling that postpones the termination of Temporary Protected Status for more than half a million Venezuelans while the litigation continues.
In a 52-page decision the panel held that the Department of Homeland Security lacked statutory authority to cut short an extension of TPS before it expires, and that doing so violated the timelines Congress set in the 1990 statute creating the program. The court wrote that Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable and insulated from electoral politics.
Secretary Kristi Noem moved in February to end one of the two Venezuelan designations granted under the Biden administration, saying conditions had improved. More than 600,000 Venezuelans hold the status.
Source: Miami Herald
Judge blocks expansion of expedited removal to the interior of the country
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb temporarily blocked the administration from applying expedited removal to people detained in the interior of the United States. Expedited removal allows deportation without an appearance before an immigration judge, and the Department of Homeland Security extended it in January to people who have been in the country less than two years.
In a 48-page opinion issued Friday night, Cobb wrote that the government made a startling argument in defending the process: that people who entered illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment and must accept whatever grace Congress affords them. Were that right, she wrote, everyone would be at risk.
The ruling is a setback for the stated goal of one million removals a year.
Source: AP News
Noem confirms more ICE resources for Chicago and other major cities
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the administration will expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in major cities, including Chicago. Speaking on CBS, she said ICE has had ongoing operations in Chicago and across Illinois and intends to add resources to them.
Asked whether the expansion would involve National Guard troops assisting with arrests, Noem said such decisions are the president's prerogative and declined to discuss operational specifics.
Her remarks came a day after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order directing the city's law department to find ways to counter a federal surge, saying officials had received credible reports that the city had days rather than weeks before militarized activity began.
Source: NBC News
DHS offers to cover salaries of local police who assist with immigration arrests
The Department of Homeland Security announced a program to pay the salaries of local police officers who help enforce federal immigration law. The offer is directed at departments that partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The move comes as ICE arrest and removal figures have fallen well short of the administration's targets, and as the agency tries to add personnel quickly. Paying local officers extends the reach of federal enforcement without waiting for ICE's own hiring to conclude.
Departments that sign such agreements have their officers trained and authorized to perform specified immigration functions under federal supervision.
Source: Axios
New restrictions leave nearly all Palestinian visa applicants ineligible
The State Department has tightened requirements for Palestinian visa applicants since early August to the point that virtually all applications will be denied or not accepted for processing. The restrictions make it nearly impossible for a holder of a Palestinian Authority passport to obtain a visa for business, work, tourism or study.
Palestinians holding passports from other countries may also encounter difficulties. The department describes the policies as temporary measures to strengthen vetting.
The steps go further than restrictions applied to other nationalities, many of which carry exemptions for official travel. They form part of a wider visa review that has already led to several thousand student visa revocations, many connected to pro-Palestinian activity, alongside the announced screening of all 55 million current visa holders.
Source: AP News