Week of December 31 – January 6, 2026

A Miami Herald analysis of ICE data found that more than 20,000 immigrants were arrested in Florida between January 20 and the end of the year, more than in any state except Texas. Nearly one in four Florida residents is an immigrant.

Governor Ron DeSantis said in November that the Florida Highway Patrol alone had made close to 10,000 arrests of people in the country illegally. The Herald found many of those detained had no criminal record: officers arrested 11 people at a family reunion at a Key West airport restaurant, picked up two men fishing on a canal near Fort Lauderdale, and held a young man with a work permit for three months.

Video from a December 3 traffic stop in Key Largo shows five officers surrounding a car and pulling out a 33-year-old woman in scrubs.

Source: Miami Herald

President Trump announced the withdrawal of National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, a week after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that his justification for deploying them in Illinois was insufficient.

"We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities," he wrote on social media, adding that troops "will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form."

The troops had assisted immigration enforcement operations while deployed. Democratic officials in all three jurisdictions had sued, and lower courts had halted the deployments in several cases. Trump did not address deployments elsewhere, including Washington.

Source: Politico

U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson issued summary judgment vacating the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, restoring protections for roughly 60,000 people.

Secretary Kristi Noem had ended the three designations in June and July, saying the countries had recovered from the environmental disasters that prompted them. In late July Thompson delayed the terminations, finding preliminarily that the government failed to weigh continuing conditions and that the decisions were motivated by racial animus. An appeals court paused that order in August, allowing the terminations to proceed.

Congress created TPS in 1990 to give work permits and protection from removal to nationals of countries facing armed conflict, disaster or other conditions making return unsafe.

Source: CBS News

Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to spend $100 million over one year to recruit gun rights supporters and military enthusiasts, using online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, according to an internal document reviewed by the Washington Post.

The agency described the effort as a "wartime recruitment" strategy and called it critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide.

The document drew heavy criticism when its contents became public, with commenters arguing that recruiting at gun shows and among military enthusiasts risks building a force selected for political loyalty rather than law enforcement experience.

Source: The Washington Post

Edward Flores, an associate professor of sociology and faculty director of the UC Merced labor center, found that the number of people reporting private sector employment in California fell 3.1% in late May and early June, a drop exceeded in recent memory only by the COVID-19 lockdown.

Flores based the finding on census data and has repeated the analysis each month since, except October, when the government shutdown interrupted the data. "We are seeing a pretty persistent trend," he said.

He argues for cash relief or expanded unemployment insurance for affected workers, noting that undocumented immigrants pay payroll taxes but cannot claim benefits.

Source: Los Angeles Times

USCIS issued a memo pausing review of all pending applications for visas, green cards, citizenship and asylum filed by nationals of an additional 20 countries, after the expanded travel restrictions took effect January 1.

The memo also sets out plans to re-review applications from people of those countries decided as far back as 2021.

The travel restriction list grew last month from 19 countries to 39, plus the Palestinian Authority. Together with the December pause covering the original 19, the policy now suspends decisions for applicants from most of the countries under any form of travel restriction, regardless of how long they have lived in the United States.

Source: NPR

Thirty-two people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody during 2025, matching the previous record set in 2004. December was the deadliest single month, with seven deaths.

The deaths came as detention reached record levels. ICE held 68,440 people in mid-December, and nearly 75% of them had no criminal convictions. Recorded causes included seizure and heart failure, stroke, respiratory failure, tuberculosis and suicide. Some died at detention centers and field offices, others in hospitals while still in custody.

In several cases families and lawyers said the deaths followed repeated unsuccessful attempts to obtain medical care. Those who died included recent asylum seekers and people who had arrived years earlier, some as children.

Source: The Guardian

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Venezuelans who had held Temporary Protected Status may apply for refugee status instead. "Venezuela today is more free than it was yesterday," she said, adding that "every individual that was under TPS has the opportunity to apply for refugee status" and that "we need to make sure that our programs actually mean something."

The route she pointed to is narrow: refugee applications are normally filed from outside the United States, and the annual admissions ceiling stands at 7,500.

DHS had terminated the 2021 Venezuela designation, saying the country's "substantial role in driving irregular migration" undermined administration policy. Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins said the instability there shows the country remains unsafe for return.

Source: The Guardian

The administration launched what officials called the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever undertaken, preparing to send as many as 2,000 agents and officers to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. A person briefed on the plan described the figure to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons called it the agency's "largest immigration operation ever" in an interview with Newsmax. Neither Lyons nor DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin would say how many officers were involved.

The surge is tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Immigrant rights groups and elected officials in the Twin Cities reported a sharp rise in sightings of federal agents, particularly around St. Paul.

Source: AP News

The State Department added seven countries, five of them in Africa, to the list of nations whose passport holders must post a bond of up to $15,000 to apply for a U.S. visa. Thirteen countries are now covered, all but two in Africa.

The bonds range from $5,000 to $15,000. Officials say they deter visa overstays. Payment does not guarantee a visa; the money is refunded if the visa is denied or once the holder shows they complied with its terms.

The new additions join Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, Tanzania, Gambia, Malawi and Zambia, placed on the list in August and October. For many applicants the sums put a visa out of reach.

Source: AP News

More than 300 federal judges, appointed by every president since Ronald Reagan, have ruled against the administration's expansion of mandatory detention, ordering release or bond hearings in more than 1,600 cases, according to a Politico review of dockets nationwide.

Dozens of other judges have ordered the release of people detained without due process or held for long periods when no country would accept them.

Despite the near-uniform result, no nationwide order has blocked the policy. Most cases are filed on an emergency basis by individuals within hours of arrest, leaving little opportunity to assemble the class actions that would support a broader ruling.

Source: Politico

A federal appeals court agreed to expedite the challenge by business and research groups to the $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, setting oral arguments for February.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued that a fast schedule was necessary to preserve employers' options before the annual H-1B registration period opens in March, the only chance most employers get each year to apply for the visas. "Without relief by March, it will be too late," the Chamber told the court.

The administration did not oppose the shortened timeline. A district judge upheld the fee in late December.

Source: Reuters