Week of January 21–27, 2026
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.
ICE memo lets officers force entry into homes without a judge's warrant
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by the Associated Press authorizes officers to use force to enter a residence on the strength of an administrative warrant alone, when arresting someone with a final order of removal.
For years advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have told immigrants not to open the door unless agents produce a warrant signed by a judge, advice grounded in Supreme Court rulings that generally bar entry into a home without judicial approval. The directive undercuts that guidance as arrests accelerate.
According to a whistleblower complaint, the memo has not been widely circulated within the agency. Advocates say the policy conflicts with Fourth Amendment protections and is likely to be tested in court.
Source: AP News
Appeals court lifts limits on force against Minneapolis protesters
A federal appeals court lifted the order that had barred federal officers from arresting or tear-gassing peaceful protesters in Minneapolis, five days after U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez issued it.
Menendez's preliminary injunction prohibited agents from detaining people engaged in nonviolent, unobstructive protest and from using pepper spray, tear gas or other crowd-control munitions against demonstrators or bystanders observing and recording enforcement operations in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
The suit was brought in December by activists who said the deployment infringed their rights to protest and to observe enforcement actions. The Department of Homeland Security appealed, and the injunction is suspended while the appeal proceeds.
Source: Reuters
Agents detain a five-year-old in Minnesota driveway
Federal agents took five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos from a running car in his family's driveway as he arrived home from preschool, then sent him with his father to a detention facility in Texas. He is the fourth student from the Columbia Heights school district to be detained in recent weeks.
Superintendent Zena Stenvik said officers told the boy to knock on the door of his home to see whether anyone else was inside, "essentially using a 5-year-old as bait."
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the operation targeted the boy's father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who she said is from Ecuador and in the country illegally, and that an officer stayed with the child during the arrest.
Source: AP News
Autopsy rules a detained Cuban man's death a homicide
An autopsy by the El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the January 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos a homicide, finding he died of asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. The 55-year-old father of four was held in solitary confinement at Camp East Montana, the tent facility on the grounds of Fort Bliss.
ICE had said he was attempting suicide and that staff tried to save him. A witness told the Associated Press that Lunas Campos was handcuffed while at least five guards held him down and one squeezed an arm around his neck until he lost consciousness.
The report noted abrasions on his chest and knees and hemorrhages on his neck. His was one of at least three deaths at the camp in little more than a month.
Source: AP News
Fifth Circuit rehears Texas immigration arrest law SB 4
A federal appeals court reheard oral arguments in the challenge to Senate Bill 4, the 2023 Texas law that would make illegal border crossing a state misdemeanor, allow state officers to arrest people suspected of entering unlawfully, and require state magistrates to order those arrested to leave the country.
Immigration enforcement has long been the exclusive responsibility of the federal government. Texas leaders argued the state had a constitutional right to protect its sovereignty along its 1,250 miles of border as crossings reached record levels under the previous administration. Crossings have since fallen sharply.
"What is at stake most importantly is the ability of migrants to live and feel safe in a state where they have contributed deeply," said Denise Gilman, who co-directs the immigration clinic at the University of Texas at Austin.
Source: The Texas Tribune
ICE arrests 100 people in first days of Maine operation
Immigration agents arrested 100 people in the first three days of an operation in Maine, according to the Department of Homeland Security. ICE deputy assistant director Patricia Hyde told Fox News the agency had assembled a list of 1,400 people in the state it intended to target.
The operation has concentrated on Portland and Lewiston, the state's two largest cities. Organizers say agents have focused on nationals of Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, many of them asylum seekers who settled in Maine over recent decades.
Governor Janet Mills said the administration had not returned her calls since the operation began and that her office had received reports of people with no criminal record being detained. She said she would be "shocked" if 1,400 people with criminal backgrounds were found in the state.
Source: The Guardian
Judge blocks the end of protections for 4,000 Myanmar nationals
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly in Chicago blocked the termination of Temporary Protected Status for about 4,000 nationals of Myanmar, holding that Secretary Kristi Noem's decision lacked a genuine basis. He postponed the effective date, which was set for Monday, and scheduled a hearing for February 6.
The administration announced in November that it would end the designation, arguing that people could safely return and citing elections organized by the military junta as evidence of improving conditions.
Burma was designated for TPS after the 2021 coup. The ruling is one of several this month restoring protections that DHS had moved to withdraw.
Source: Reuters
Poll finds half of Americans call the deportation campaign too aggressive
A Politico poll found that 49% of Americans consider the mass deportation campaign too aggressive, including one in five voters who backed the president in 2024. Among Trump supporters outside the MAGA base, 29% said the approach goes too far, while 47% called it about right.
Republican lawmakers, candidates and strategists say the enforcement operations, the arrests of U.S. citizens and the clashes with protesters could cost the party its narrow House majority in the midterms.
"If we don't change our approach, it will have a negative effect on the midterms, for sure," said Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington, who is not seeking reelection. Republicans are divided over whether the problem is messaging or the policy itself.
Source: Politico
Border Patrol officer kills a Minneapolis nurse at a protest
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by a masked Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on January 24, the sixth death during the immigration enforcement campaign and the second in the city this month.
Federal authorities described him as an armed agitator who threatened officers. Video shows his hands holding only a phone when the officer opened fire. Pretti held a permit for the handgun he carried in Minnesota; in the video an officer appears to pull a gun from his waist and step away before the first shot is fired. He was on the ground when he was killed.
The earlier Minneapolis death was that of Renee Good, shot by an ICE officer on January 7.
Source: AP News
Judge orders ICE director to court over denied bond hearings
Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of the federal district court in Minnesota ordered Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, to appear in person and explain why he should not be held in contempt for the government's failure to hold hearings for detained immigrants.
"This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result," Schiltz wrote.
The order followed the president's decision to put border czar Tom Homan in charge of the Minnesota operation after the second death this month at the hands of an immigration officer.
Source: AP News
Abbott halts H-1B petitions at Texas agencies and universities
Governor Greg Abbott ordered Texas state agencies and public universities to stop filing new H-1B visa petitions. The state is home to thousands of H-1B workers.
"State government must lead by example and ensure that employment opportunities, particularly those funded with taxpayer dollars, are filled by Texans first," Abbott wrote.
Universities and hospitals use the category to recruit researchers, physicians and specialized instructors. "Freezing those pathways makes it harder to staff classrooms, research centers, and hospitals across our state, raising costs, straining public services, and hurting Texans in every corner of our state," said state Representative Ramon Romero Jr., chairman of the Texas Mexican American Legislative Caucus.
Source: AP News
Population growth halves as immigration falls
Census Bureau estimates put the U.S. population at 342 million and the 2025 growth rate at 0.5%, down sharply from almost 1% in 2024, which had been the highest in two decades and was driven by immigration.
Net immigration added almost 1.3 million people last year, against nearly 2.8 million in 2024. If current trends hold, the bureau projects the annual gain from immigration will fall to 321,000 by mid-2026. Its estimates do not separate lawful from unlawful immigration.
Births exceeded deaths by 519,000, well below the 1.6 to 1.9 million range of the 2000s. California recorded a net loss of 9,500 residents, after a gain of 232,000 the year before.
Source: AP News