Week of March 19–25, 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 drops the federal challenge to Texas immigration law SB 4
The Trump administration moved late Tuesday to drop the federal government's legal challenge to Senate Bill 4, the 2023 Texas law that allows local police to arrest people they suspect of crossing the Texas-Mexico border illegally. In a court filing, the Justice Department told U.S. District Judge David Ezra that it was voluntarily dismissing the case the Biden administration had brought.
The law makes crossing between ports of entry a Class B misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail, with repeat offenses charged as a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years. A judge who convicts someone must order police to transport them to a port of entry for removal.
Ezra had blocked the law, Texas appealed, and the appeals court returned the case to his court, where it remains pending. El Paso County, American Gateways and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center are continuing to challenge it.
Source: The Texas Tribune
Hundreds of deported immigrants vanished from the ICE detainee locator
Families searching for relatives found that hundreds of immigrants had disappeared from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's online detainee locator after weekend deportation flights. More than 200 Venezuelans were flown to El Salvador, where they are held in a maximum-security prison that bars visitors, recreation and education. The United States has paid El Salvador's government $6 million to hold them.
El Salvador has no public database of inmates, leaving relatives without a way to confirm where people were taken. Two families told the Associated Press that the men had no criminal records and suspected tattoos had led to gang accusations.
President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on Saturday to carry out the removals. In a court filing on Monday, officials acknowledged that many of those sent to El Salvador have no criminal records but said all were suspected gang members.
Source: AP News
US embassy in South Africa receives 67,000 names seeking refugee status
The United States Embassy in South Africa said on Thursday that it had received a list of more than 67,000 people interested in refugee status under President Donald Trump's plan to resettle members of the country's white minority. The list came from the South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S., which said it does not constitute official applications.
Neil Diamond, the chamber's president, said the list holds 67,042 names, most of them people aged 25 to 45 with children. He said only U.S. authorities can register applications, and the embassy said it was awaiting instructions on carrying out the order.
Trump's February 7 executive order cut U.S. funding to South Africa and directed the secretaries of state and homeland security to resettle Afrikaners as refugees. About 2.7 million Afrikaners live in South Africa, which has a population of 62 million.
Source: AP News
Judge blocks deportation of a Georgetown researcher held in Louisiana
U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered on Thursday that Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow, could not be removed from the country unless the court issued a contrary order. Suri, an Indian national teaching and researching on a student visa, was arrested outside his northern Virginia home on Monday night by masked immigration agents who told him his visa had been revoked.
He was taken to the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, according to ICE. Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said Suri had spread Hamas propaganda and had close connections to a suspected terrorist, without giving further detail.
His lawyer and Georgetown denied the allegations. A court filing said he was targeted because of his wife's identity as a Palestinian and her protected speech. Georgetown said his research covers peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Source: BBC
Homeland Security cuts its civil rights and immigration ombudsman offices
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed it was cutting jobs in three oversight offices as part of a reduction in force: the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman.
The two ombudsman offices work with people held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and with applicants who run into problems at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the offices had obstructed immigration enforcement and functioned as internal adversaries, and that the department would streamline oversight.
An earlier round of cuts in February removed 405 DHS employees from cybersecurity, disaster response and science and technology roles, with fewer than 50 lost at USCIS. Senators Gary Peters and Dick Durbin had written to Secretary Kristi Noem warning that the civil rights office is statutorily required.
Source: NPR
European and Canadian visitors held for weeks at US border crossings
Several travelers from Western Europe and Canada were detained for weeks at U.S. border crossings, the Associated Press reported. Lucas Sielaff, a 25-year-old German visitor, spent 16 days in detention after returning from Tijuana on February 18, 22 days into a 90-day tourist permit. Another German tourist, Jessica Broesche, was held 45 days, including more than a week in solitary confinement.
A backpacker from Wales spent nearly three weeks in detention at the Canadian border, and a Canadian woman on a work visa was held 12 days. ICE said the two Germans were deemed inadmissible by Customs and Border Protection. Both had entered under the Visa Waiver Program, which still leaves officers wide discretion to refuse entry.
Britain and Germany updated their travel advisories after the detentions. UCLA urged foreign-born students and staff to weigh the risks of traveling over spring break.
Source: AP News
DHS revokes parole for 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans
The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that it would revoke legal protections for about 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who entered the United States since October 2022 under a Biden-era humanitarian parole program. They arrived with financial sponsors and received two-year permits to live and work in the country.
Secretary Kristi Noem said their status would end on April 24, or 30 days after publication of the notice in the Federal Register. DHS said parolees without another lawful basis to remain must depart before that date, adding that parole is temporary and is not itself a basis for immigration status.
The program had admitted up to 30,000 people a month from the four countries. A group of citizens and immigrants sued in late February seeking to reinstate it, and that case is pending.
Source: NPR
Trump directs the attorney general to seek sanctions against immigration lawyers
In a memorandum sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi late on Friday, President Donald Trump said lawyers were helping to fuel rampant fraud and meritless claims in the immigration system, and directed the Justice Department to seek sanctions against attorneys for professional misconduct.
The memorandum also targeted firms that sue the administration in what Trump called baseless partisan lawsuits. It asked Bondi to refer those firms to the White House so their security clearances could be stripped and their federal contracts terminated, and to review cases brought against the government over the past eight years.
More than 100 lawsuits have been filed against the administration since January over immigration, transgender rights and other issues. Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union said the directive sought to chill and intimidate lawyers who challenge the president. A White House spokesperson said Trump was keeping a promise to stop the judicial system being weaponized.
Source: Reuters
HHS terminates the contract funding lawyers for unaccompanied children
The Department of Health and Human Services ordered attorneys representing unaccompanied minors in immigration court to stop work on Friday, the second such order in just over a month. This time the lawyers were told the contract had been partially terminated rather than paused.
The contract covers more than 26,000 children. It is held by the Acacia Center for Justice, whose executive director, Shaina Aber, said legal services for vulnerable children were more crucial than ever as removal proceedings are sped up. An earlier pause last month, directed by the cost-cutting group known as DOGE, was reversed within the week.
It was not clear whether attorneys would be reimbursed for children they already represent. Jonathan Ryan of the subcontracting nonprofit Advokato said most lawyers would continue with existing clients, but the termination cuts them off from taking on new children in detention.
Source: Houston Public Media
USCIS pauses green card processing for approved refugees and asylees
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services directed officials to suspend processing of permanent residency applications filed by immigrants who had been granted refugee or asylum status, sources told CBS News. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the report.
DHS said the agency was placing a temporary pause on finalizing certain adjustment of status applications pending additional screening and vetting to identify potential fraud, public safety or national security concerns. It cited two January executive actions, one directing agencies to vet all immigrants to the maximum degree possible and one that opened the way to designating gangs and cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Refugees are admitted after years of overseas security checks, medical screening and interviews, while asylees are granted protection by immigration judges or asylum officers. The pause follows a February decision to halt applications from people who arrived under two Biden-era parole programs.
Source: CBS News
Appeals court lets the administration suspend approval of new refugees
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration may suspend the entry of new refugees while a lawsuit proceeds over the executive order halting the country's refugee admissions system.
Refugees who were conditionally approved before the president took office must still be processed under the order, but the panel allowed the administration to stop approving new ones.
The appeals court halted a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, who had found that the president could not nullify the law Congress passed to establish the refugee program.
Source: WBAL-TV
Judge bars immigration agents from detaining Columbia student Yunseo Chung
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled on Tuesday that Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student facing deportation over her part in a pro-Palestinian protest, could not be taken into immigration detention for now. Chung came to the United States at age 7 and later became a lawful permanent resident.
Buchwald said government lawyers had not laid out enough facts to justify detaining her, and that nothing filed indicated she was dangerous or had communicated with terrorists. She set a briefing schedule for next month with oral arguments on May 20.
Chung sued on Monday after officials told her lawyer that her permanent resident status was being revoked following her arrest at a Barnard College library sit-in, where she was charged with a misdemeanor. A separate hearing in Syracuse considered the case of Cornell doctoral student Momodou Taal.
Source: AP News