Week of February 12–18, 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.
Justice Department sues New York over its Green Light Law
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Wednesday that the Justice Department had filed a civil lawsuit against New York State and Governor Kathy Hochul over the state's resistance to federal immigration enforcement. Bondi said the case centers on the 2019 Green Light Law, which she said bars state agencies from sharing motor vehicle records with federal immigration authorities and requires the DMV commissioner to notify a person when a federal immigration agency requests their information.
"We sued Illinois. New York did not listen, now you're next," Bondi said. Hochul called the filing a routine civil action over a law that courts have already upheld, and said federal officials can reach DMV records with a judicial warrant. State Attorney General Letitia James said she was prepared to defend the law.
The suit came a day after the federal government took back more than $80 million that FEMA had paid New York City to house migrants.
Source: ABC7 New York
Two senior ICE enforcement officials reassigned over pace of arrests
Staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement were told Tuesday evening that two senior officials in the agency's enforcement arm, Russell Hott and Peter Berg, had been reassigned amid administration frustration over the pace of immigration arrests. Todd Lyons, recently the top enforcement official in the Boston area, takes over Enforcement and Removal Operations, with Garrett Ripa as his deputy. Berg returns to the ICE office in St. Paul and Hott to the Washington field office.
Officials told the Associated Press that no reason was given. The moves followed comments by border czar Tom Homan that he was not satisfied with arrest numbers or with the number of people released from custody, and that no one would be released without ICE leadership signing off. A Homeland Security spokeswoman said the agency needs "a culture of accountability."
ICE published daily arrest figures from Jan. 23 to Jan. 31, averaging 787 a day, against a daily average of 311 over the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2024.
Source: AP News
Refugee agencies lay off staff as federal resettlement funds stay frozen
Hundreds of resettlement workers have been laid off or furloughed and millions of dollars in federal grants remain frozen after the administration paused the refugee admissions program and the funding that flows to the nonprofits running it. The organizations affected serve more than 22,000 refugees already in the United States.
Refugees admitted through the program are entitled to up to 90 days of help with housing, employment, school enrollment, English classes and medical care. Since the 2025 fiscal year began in October, 27,300 people have been resettled. Global Refuge announced its first layoffs, and Mark Hetfield of HIAS, which is in the middle of resettling 3,000 people, said the administration had defunded the resettlement infrastructure rather than only halting arrivals.
It was not clear how much of the disruption stemmed from the funding review ordered by the White House and how much from technical or administrative error.
Source: NPR
Fourth federal judge blocks the birthright citizenship order
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction Thursday against the executive order narrowing birthright citizenship, becoming the fourth federal judge to block it. He found that 19 states, the District of Columbia, two nonprofit groups and a pregnant plaintiff were likely to succeed on their claim that the order violates the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The order, signed on the president's first day in office, would deny citizenship to children born in the United States to mothers who are here unlawfully or temporarily on visas when the father is neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident.
In a 31 page decision Sorokin leaned on United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 Supreme Court ruling that a man born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a citizen, writing that it "leaves no room" for the administration's reading. Judges in Maryland, Washington and New Hampshire had already issued injunctions, and at least eight suits are pending.
Source: CBS News
DeSantis signs Florida immigration package within an hour of passage
Governor Ron DeSantis signed two immigration bills less than an hour after the Florida House and Senate passed them, ending weeks of public conflict with Republican legislative leaders over how the state should support federal deportation policy.
The measures create a State Board of Immigration Enforcement made up of the governor, the agriculture commissioner, the attorney general and the chief financial officer, which will distribute $250 million in grants to local law enforcement agencies that cooperate with federal immigration authorities. A council of eight sheriffs and police chiefs will advise the board. The package costs about $298 million.
SB 4-C makes it a misdemeanor for an adult immigrant to enter Florida after avoiding inspection at the border, and imposes the death penalty on immigrants without permanent legal status who are convicted of capital crimes. The Senate's own bill analysis noted that the Supreme Court has found mandatory death sentence laws unconstitutional. SB 2-C repeals in-state tuition for undocumented students, available since 2014.
Source: Florida Phoenix
Adams agrees to let ICE operate inside Rikers Island
Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that he would allow ICE to operate inside the Rikers Island jail complex, after meeting border czar Tom Homan at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. City Hall said the change permits ICE to work on Rikers for criminal investigations but not for civil immigration enforcement.
Adams said he had explained to Homan the limits that New York City's sanctuary laws place on city agencies, and that the two also discussed assigning more NYPD detectives to federal task forces targeting gangs. He said he would ask the City Council to amend those laws so the city can refer people it considers dangerous for deportation.
The mayor said the city had received more than 230,000 migrants since spring 2022 at a cost of roughly $7 billion. He denied being beholden to an administration that had directed prosecutors to drop his federal bribery case. Representative Hakeem Jeffries said constituents were "deeply alarmed."
Source: ABC7 New York
ICE staff given access to the database on unaccompanied children
Additional ICE personnel at agency headquarters were granted access this week to the Office of Refugee Resettlement database on unaccompanied children who crossed the border, according to internal Health and Human Services communications reviewed by NPR. ORR sits within HHS rather than the Department of Homeland Security. An ICE spokesperson said the agency's juvenile coordinators had always had access.
The access was approved under ORR's interim leadership. Mellissa Harper, an ICE official from New Orleans, was assigned last month as the office's acting director. Guidance published the same day requires fingerprinting of all adult sponsors and adult household members before a child is released.
Harper told staff the changes were needed "to build a culture of child safety and accountability." Advocates said they expect the information to be used for enforcement against sponsor families. HHS counted 4,096 unaccompanied children in its care as of Jan. 29, with an average stay of 36 days.
Source: NPR
Five federal prisons will hold male ICE detainees under new agreement
Male ICE detainees will be held in units at five federal prisons under a memorandum of understanding between the Bureau of Prisons and ICE signed on Feb. 6, according to the document obtained by ABC News. The facilities are the federal detention centers in Miami and Philadelphia and the federal correctional institutions in Atlanta, in Leavenworth, Kansas, and in Berlin, New Hampshire.
The Bureau of Prisons will not hold female ICE detainees. The agreement gives the bureau final say over who is admitted, bars ICE from placing detainees at institutions it has not designated, and provides for at least two ICE officers at each participating facility. Detainees who are disruptive can be removed from bureau custody.
One person familiar with the arrangement said housing immigration detainees has not been the bureau's mission for some time, and that existing staffing shortages could limit its ability to care for them.
Source: ABC News
Justice Department fires immigration judges as case backlog grows
The Justice Department fired several immigration judges on Friday, according to two people familiar with the decision and a public statement from one of those dismissed. The terminations were issued by the acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the immigration courts.
The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union representing immigration judges, said five midlevel assistant chief immigration judges and 13 candidates for judgeships received notices that day, and that more than two dozen judges, managers and new hires had been removed since January.
Kerry Doyle, a recently appointed judge who previously served as deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, said she was told by email that she had been fired and called the decision political. She noted that the immigration courts have roughly 3.5 million pending cases and that the department has asked Congress for money to hire more staff. Justice and Homeland Security did not comment.
Source: NBC News
Siblings with work permits held two weeks in New Mexico detention
Two Honduran siblings with pending asylum applications and permission to work were held in immigration detention for two weeks after ICE agents stopped their vehicle on the way to a flower farm near Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Pedro, 18, and Elizabeth, 19, arrived in El Paso as unaccompanied minors in early 2021. They were arrested on Jan. 27 after a plainclothes agent told Pedro there was a warrant for his arrest. Their attorney, Jacob Wedemeyer of Estrella del Paso, said no warrant was produced and no reason was given for the stop. Neither sibling has a criminal record, and the Department of Homeland Security had twice dismissed removal proceedings against them, in January and August 2023.
They were taken to the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral. On Feb. 5 an immigration judge granted a joint motion to administratively close the case, and they were released. An ICE attorney told the court the arrests resulted from ongoing enforcement actions.
Source: El Paso Matters
Catholic bishops sue over the halt to refugee resettlement funding
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sued the administration on Tuesday over the abrupt suspension of refugee resettlement funding, arguing that withholding money Congress had already appropriated breaks federal law and the constitutional assignment of spending power to Congress. The suit was filed in federal district court in Washington and names the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services along with Secretary Marco Rubio and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The conference said its Migration and Refugee Services office had sent layoff notices to 50 workers, more than half its staff, with further cuts expected at partner Catholic Charities offices. It said it was still owed about $13 million in reimbursements for costs incurred before Jan. 24.
As of Jan. 25 it had 6,758 refugees in its care who had been in the country less than 90 days, the period during which resettlement aid is available. Archbishop Timothy Broglio said the program had become financially unsustainable.
Source: AP News
State Department narrows who can skip a visa interview
The State Department reduced the categories of nonimmigrant visa applicants who can be excused from an in-person interview, in an update that supersedes its guidance of December 2023.
Consular officers may now waive the interview for applicants in the A-1, A-2, C-3, G-1 through G-4, NATO-1 through NATO-6 and TECRO E-1 classifications, for applicants for diplomatic or official visas, and for applicants who previously held a visa in the same category that expired less than 12 months before the new application. Attendants, servants and personal employees of accredited officials are excluded from the C-3 category.
Applicants must also apply in their country of nationality or residence, must never have been refused a visa unless the refusal was overcome or waived, and must have no apparent or potential ineligibility. Consular officers keep the discretion to require an interview in any case or because of local conditions.
Source: U.S. Department of State