Week of March 11–17, 2026

Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to let the government terminate temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, after two lower courts refused.

Sauer argued that the lower courts overstepped by intervening in an area of wide executive branch latitude, and that they are blocking major policy initiatives in ways that harm the national interest and foreign relations.

It is the fourth TPS-related application the administration has brought to the court, following two on Venezuela and one on Syria that remains pending. Sauer defended former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's finding that parts of Haiti are suitable for return despite gang violence in Port-au-Prince. Haiti's designation had been set to terminate on February 3.

Source: Miami Herald

An Egyptian family of six held for more than nine months at the Dilley detention center in South Texas described conditions there in 59 pages of declarations, handwritten letters and children's drawings, obtained by the Texas Tribune before lawyers submitted them to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hayam El Gamal and her five children, aged 5 to 18, describe inadequate medical care, inedible food and disregard for their religious practice as Muslims. A 16-year-old wrote of seeing food with mold and worms; a 9-year-old wrote that he missed his toys and asked to be let out.

Lawyers believe the family has been held longer than any other at the facility, which is the only ICE center holding children with their parents, during the current administration.

Source: The Texas Tribune

The State Department issued a final rule amending the regulations for the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, which the department says is intended to improve program integrity and combat fraud.

Entrants must now supply information from a valid, unexpired passport and upload a scan of the biographic and signature page with the electronic entry form, unless they indicate that they qualify for one of the limited exemptions.

The rule also makes wording changes to the regulations, replacing references to an entrant's age with date of birth, using the term sex in place of gender, and adding the word shall to standardize guidance for consular officers. The rule takes effect April 10, 2026.

Source: Federal Register

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation making New Mexico the first state to bar armed federal agents from polling locations, a response to the prospect of immigration officers at the polls during this year's midterm elections.

At least half a dozen other Democratic-led states are weighing similar measures, along with steps to shield election records from federal requests. State officials say they are guarding against voter intimidation.

A Department of Homeland Security official told secretaries of state last month that immigration agents would not be stationed at polling places. Democratic election officials have remained wary, citing Justice Department demands for detailed voter data.

Source: AP News

Rural school districts that have relied on international teachers to fill vacancies are cutting back as visa sponsorship costs rise and immigration policy grows less predictable.

Superintendent Vallerie Cave said it now feels too risky to extend contracts for some international teachers or to hire new ones, and that some of her best teachers are having to return to their home countries. Districts that cannot replace them are considering online instruction, uncertified teachers, combined classes or dropping courses.

The pressure follows the one-time $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions announced in September. The administration argued the fee would stop employers replacing American workers, particularly in well-paid technology roles. Critics say it worsens shortages in fields outside technology.

Source: AP News

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it is terminating the contractor operating Camp East Montana in El Paso and replacing it with a more experienced firm that will work to improve medical care and other services.

The facility holds an average of nearly 3,000 people in six tent encampments and has drawn scrutiny since its rapid construction last year. Detainees describe overcrowding, difficulty getting medication and health care, significant weight loss from inadequate food, and fear of guards known to use force. At least 130 calls to 911 were made from the camp in its first five months.

A measles outbreak recently spread through the site, and several Democratic members of Congress have called for it to close.

Source: AP News

Asylum seekers with no criminal records are increasingly being detained while their applications are pending, a departure from the practice under which applicants worked and lived in their communities until a decision.

Attorneys described a consistent pattern: people who have lived in the United States for years are arrested during errands or on the way to work, then held in conditions that make it harder to prepare a case and subject them to pressure to leave voluntarily. Arrests have been reported in Minnesota, New York, Virginia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Maine, Alaska, Wisconsin, California and Texas.

One Maine attorney said six of her asylum clients were detained during a federal operation there in late January, including one picked up on the way to collect a newborn.

Source: NBC News

The administration is publishing less vetted data on immigration enforcement than its predecessors, even as it promotes numerical goals such as deporting a million people a year, leaving researchers, lawyers and journalists without figures to check its claims.

The Office of Homeland Security Statistics, which has tracked immigration data in some form since the 1800s, has stopped releasing much of what it once published. Numbers now appear mainly in press releases.

Mike Howell of the conservative Oversight Project, which favors more deportations, said the department puts out figures that purport to be statistics with no statistical backing and that jump around. The pattern follows earlier removals of federal datasets across the government.

Source: AP News

An Afghan man identified as Paktyawal, 41, died less than 24 hours after ICE took him into custody. He was arrested on a Friday and reported shortness of breath and chest pain during his medical intake at a Dallas ICE field office, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, and was taken to Parkland Hospital.

DHS alleged he had committed food stamp fraud and theft and said it had no record of his military service. The San Diego group #AfghanEvac disputed that, with president Shawn VanDiver saying calling a man a criminal without a conviction and claiming no service record without checking interagency systems looks like damage control.

The Dallas County medical examiner has not determined a cause of death. His family, which includes six children, said he had not been ill.

Source: AP News

The Supreme Court agreed to review the administration's authority to end temporary protected status, taking up the Haiti and Syria cases and scheduling oral argument for the week of April 27.

Until then the justices left in place the lower court rulings blocking the terminations, so protections and work authorization continue for people covered by both designations.

A decision is expected by summer. It will shape the administration's effort to end TPS for more than a dozen countries. The government argues that courts have no authority to review the secretary's decisions on the program; lower courts have held that the statute limits how and when a designation may be ended.

Source: The Hill

Leqaa Kordia, 33, a Palestinian woman arrested in March 2025 for overstaying a student visa after taking part in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, was released from immigration detention after more than a year.

An immigration judge ordered her release on $100,000 bond. It was the third time the same judge had ruled in her favor; government lawyers had contested the earlier rulings and she remained in custody.

Kordia is the last person arrested in connection with those demonstrations to be released. Her lawyers argued the administration targeted her for protesting military action in Gaza. The Department of Homeland Security said her visa was terminated in January 2022 for lack of attendance and that she was arrested for the overstay.

Source: NBC News

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 265 young people with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and deported 132 of them between January 20 and December 22 of last year, according to a Department of Homeland Security letter to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto obtained by NBC News.

Congress created the status in 1990 for immigrant minors found by a state court to have been abused, abandoned or neglected in their home countries. Recipients must petition before turning 21 and are entitled to apply for a green card.

Because of a backlog in green card availability, many wait years in the United States after being approved. Rachel Davidson of the End SIJS Backlog Coalition said the arrests tear them away from the stability they had built on a path to permanent protection.

Source: NBC News