Week of December 24–30, 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.
Judge upholds the $100,000 H-1B visa fee
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled for the administration and upheld the $100,000 fee charged on new H-1B visas, rejecting a challenge brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Association of American Universities, which had argued the charge was unlawful.
The fee was created by a September proclamation and applies to employers petitioning for workers who must enter the country on a new H-1B. It falls hardest on technology companies, universities and hospitals that use the category to hire skilled foreign workers.
A separate suit brought earlier in December by 18 Democratic state attorneys general remains pending.
Source: The Hill
State Department bars five Europeans over online "censorship"
The State Department barred five Europeans it accused of leading efforts to pressure American technology firms into suppressing American viewpoints. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described them as "radical" activists and "weaponized" nongovernmental organizations.
The five, named by Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, include leaders of organizations that work on digital hate and a former European Union commissioner. They were excluded under a visa policy announced in May that restricts entry by foreigners judged responsible for censoring protected speech in the United States.
"The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship," Rubio wrote. The measure drew condemnation from European governments.
Source: PBS NewsHour
USCIS tightens evidence rules for Violence Against Women Act petitions
The federal government announced stricter evidence requirements for self-petitions filed under the Violence Against Women Act, citing a sharp rise in filings and concerns about fraud.
Congress created the pathway in 1994 so that immigrant survivors of domestic violence, battery or extreme cruelty at the hands of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident relative could apply for a green card on their own, without the abuser's knowledge or cooperation.
Advocates say the change applies not only to new filings but to thousands of cases already pending. Miami immigration attorney Patricia Elizee said the shift affects survivors who had relied on being able to self-petition, leaving people who have already left abusive households facing a higher evidentiary burden mid-process.
Source: CBS News
ICE arrests stall home construction across South Texas
Immigration arrests have slowed homebuilding across South Texas as workers stay home. ICE has arrested more than 9,100 people in the region, nearly a fifth of all such arrests in Texas since January, according to government data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the Texas Tribune.
Mario Guerrero, executive director of the South Texas Builders Association, said video of agents detaining people at a construction site circulated in a group chat in mid-November and fear spread from there. Economists expect the labor shortage to push housing costs up.
"I am an American citizen, and it's crazy that we're living in times where you actually have to state that," Guerrero said in a video addressed to the local building community.
Source: The Texas Tribune
ICE sweeps in Columbus unsettle Ohio's Somali community
A week of immigration enforcement in Columbus has emptied shops and rattled the city's Somali community, the second largest in the country after Minneapolis. ICE publicized the arrests of ten men under "Operation Buckeye," saying they had criminal records, though three had been arrested before the operation began. The agency did not say how many were detained in total.
Mayor Andrew J. Ginther called the agents' presence unwelcome and said city police would not assist arrests based solely on immigration status.
"Never in a million years did I think I would have to prove I was a United States citizen when I was born here in Ohio," said Ayub Abdi, 24, an Ohio State student who has begun carrying his passport. A financial services storefront that is normally busy before Christmas stood empty.
Source: The New York Times
Minnesota warns ICE that swapping license plates breaks state law
The director of Minnesota's Driver and Vehicle Services warned ICE that agents who switch or remove license plates on unmarked vehicles are violating state law and could be cited.
The warning followed reports from observers who filmed federal agents changing plates during the enforcement surge in the Twin Cities. Luke Mielke, who has been watching agents outside the Whipple Federal Building, described seeing several agents sorting through a stack of plates before swapping one on a vehicle.
The conduct reported to the state "violates Minnesota law and will not be tolerated," DVS Director Pong Xiong wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the local ICE office.
Source: MPR News
ICE officers shoot van driver in Maryland on Christmas Eve
ICE officers fired into a van during an immigration operation in Glen Burnie, Maryland, south of Baltimore, leaving two men hospitalized in stable condition.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said officers approached the van and told the driver, a Portuguese national who had overstayed a visa that expired in 2009, to turn off the engine. She said he refused, drove at officers and struck ICE vehicles while trying to flee, and that agents fired in self-defense. The van crashed between two buildings; a passenger from El Salvador suffered whiplash.
The Anne Arundel County Police Department is investigating the shooting, and the FBI is investigating the alleged attempt to harm officers.
Source: NBC News
Judge bars courthouse arrests across Northern California
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts barred ICE and the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review from carrying out sweeping civil arrests at immigration courthouses across Northern California, restoring in that region the practice that prevailed before this year.
"This circumstance presents noncitizens in removal proceedings with a Hobson's choice between two irreparable harms," Pitts wrote in the Christmas Eve decision. "First, they may appear in immigration court and face likely arrest and detention. Alternatively, noncitizens may choose not to appear and instead to forego their opportunity to pursue their claims for asylum or other relief from removal."
The ruling sets up an appeal over one of the administration's most contested enforcement tactics.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Administration pushes asylum seekers toward third countries
The Department of Homeland Security is asking immigration courts to dismiss asylum claims without a hearing and to send applicants to a third country to seek protection there, even where the applicant has no connection to that country.
The strategy relies on so-called safe third country agreements the administration has reached with several nations, among them Uganda, Honduras and Ecuador, some with records of gang violence or human rights abuses. It was strengthened in October by a Board of Immigration Appeals decision.
"Asylum was not designed to provide people a backdoor way to get to a country of their choosing," said a senior administration official granted anonymity to describe the approach.
Source: Politico
Judge allows Medicaid enrollee data to be shared with ICE
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria partly denied a request by states for a preliminary injunction, ruling that the federal government may share "basic biographical, location, and contact information" about Medicaid participants with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a notice that it will share the minimum required, such as citizenship and immigration status, location and phone numbers. The judge did block broader efforts to obtain more sensitive health data, data on citizens and lawful permanent residents, and data from other CMS programs, a limit California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office said it was gratified to see.
DHS called the decision "a victory for the rule of law and American taxpayers." All states must offer emergency Medicaid regardless of immigration status.
Source: NBC News
Judge blocks the end of Temporary Protected Status for South Sudan
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley temporarily blocked the termination of Temporary Protected Status for South Sudanese nationals, keeping protections in place while she considers the case. Court filings indicate roughly 232 people currently hold the status.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had announced a review of conditions in South Sudan and set the designation to end in January, prompting a suit by individual holders and the group African Communities Together. South Sudan was first designated in 2011, the year it became independent.
Kelley wrote that if the status expired and were later restored, "any gap in immigration status for South Sudanese nationals could result in ineligibility for future relief." Her order does not address the merits.
Source: The Hill