Week of May 27 – June 2, 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.
New green card policy leaves applicants and lawyers uncertain
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on Friday that foreign nationals in the United States who want a green card must leave and apply from their home country, apart from unspecified exceptions. The change potentially affects hundreds of thousands of applicants a year.
For more than half a century, people with legal status have been able to complete the permanent residence process without leaving, including spouses of U.S. citizens, work and student visa holders, refugees and asylees.
Attorneys said clients are pausing filings while they wait for detail on which cases qualify for an exception. “This is simply an attempt to try to limit and scare people away from the legal immigration process,” said attorney Charles Kuck, who expects litigation over the policy.
Source: AP News
AP investigation finds an unprecedented rise in suicides in ICE detention
At least 10 people have died by suicide in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since January 2025, a pace without precedent in the agency's two-decade history, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Seven of those deaths have occurred since October, already the most in a single fiscal year. ICE has typically recorded one suicide a year or none. The deaths account for nearly 20 percent of the 51 people who have died in ICE custody since January 2025, and the rate of increase exceeds the growth in the detained population. Most of the men had been in custody less than a month, in some cases only days.
ICE said staff follow protocols for detainees showing signs of self-harm, that annual suicide prevention training is required, and that detainees receive mental health care.
Source: AP News
Members of Congress describe dire conditions at Delaney Hall in Newark
Democratic members of Congress said they saw dire conditions inside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, where protesters have demonstrated for days and detainees are reported to be on a hunger strike.
Representative Jerry Nadler said food portions are small and “very often” contain maggots, and that Tylenol is the only medication detainees receive. He described a woman who had waited more than a month into detention for a mammogram after a lump was found in her breast, and a detainee with colon cancer who was receiving no treatment.
Representative Dan Goldman, who toured the facility, said no one could support what was happening there. Representative Adriano Espaillat called the conditions inhumane after about an hour inside.
Source: AP News
Appeals panel lets Mahmoud Khalil remain free while he petitions the Supreme Court
A Third Circuit panel put the court's earlier ruling on hold, allowing Mahmoud Khalil to remain free while he asks the Supreme Court to take his case.
The panel of Judges Stephanos Bibas, Arianna Freeman and Thomas Hardiman, appointed by Presidents Trump, Biden and George W. Bush respectively, stayed the decision issued days earlier that had held Khalil's challenge belongs in immigration court rather than federal district court.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil released last June after more than 100 days in detention. Khalil, a Columbia graduate and lawful permanent resident, was arrested by ICE in March 2025 during the administration's action against pro-Palestinian campus activists.
Source: The Hill
Asylum seekers deported by the US are held in a hotel in Equatorial Guinea
Under a $7.5 million agreement with the U.S. government, the president of Equatorial Guinea has turned a hotel owned by his family into a place of detention for asylum seekers deported from the United States, an Associated Press investigation found.
At least 32 people have been held at the Bamy Hotel in Malabo since November. Their lawyers said all of them had previously been granted protection from removal by U.S. immigration judges. Twenty-five have since been sent back to home countries in Africa where their lawyers say their lives may be in danger, and the rest are under pressure from local authorities.
The arrangement is part of the third-country removal program under which the United States pays governments to accept deportees.
Source: AP News
Falling immigration is slowing US population and job growth, economists say
The sharp fall in immigration is producing one of the steepest slowdowns in U.S. population growth in decades, and economists are starting to measure the effects on the labor market.
Federal Reserve analysis earlier this year found that the breakeven rate, the number of monthly job gains needed to keep unemployment steady, had fallen close to zero as slower labor force growth took hold. Monthly employment reports now show the economy adding fewer jobs.
A new paper examines state-level data to test whether the combination of slow population growth and near-zero employment gains leaves the labor market more exposed to shocks. Some economists warn the effects will persist well beyond the current policy.
Source: Axios
Lebanon's TPS designation automatically extended to November 27
The Temporary Protected Status designation for Lebanon, which was set to expire on May 27, has been automatically extended through November 27, 2026.
Under the TPS statute, if the secretary of homeland security does not decide whether a country still meets the conditions for designation at least 60 days before the current designation expires, the period extends automatically for six months. The notice says events in Lebanon in March 2026 affected the department's ability to complete a review of country conditions in time for the secretary's determination.
The notice also addresses employment verification, explaining how employers should treat automatically extended employment authorization documents and E-Verify alerts for affected workers.
Source: Federal Register
ICE considers selling the warehouses it bought for mass detention
The administration is examining whether to sell some of the eleven large warehouses that Immigration and Customs Enforcement bought earlier this year to serve as detention centers, according to two Department of Homeland Security officials. Several have been identified as candidates, though none has been listed and no final decision has been made.
The warehouses were purchased under former Secretary Kristi Noem as part of a plan to build capacity to hold 100,000 people at a time, on top of existing facilities. Some were to hold as many as 8,000 people each. The total cost was estimated at more than $38 billion.
ICE is also weighing the sale of aircraft bought or leased under Noem, including a Boeing 737 Max 8.
Source: NBC News
Civil rights groups sue ICE over conditions at the country's largest detention camp
The ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the firm Farella Braun + Martel sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement over conditions at Camp East Montana in El Paso, the largest immigration detention facility in the country.
The tent camp opened less than a year ago. Since then it has recorded at least three detainee deaths, including a homicide, a measles outbreak lasting nearly a month, and close to 50 detention standards violations found by ICE's own inspectors.
In a December letter the groups alleged medical neglect, physical and sexual abuse by officers, insufficient food and obstruction of access to lawyers. ICE replaced the camp's prime contractor in March and said detainee safety and well-being are a priority.
Source: The Texas Tribune
New Jersey and Newark sue GEO Group over Delaney Hall
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said the city will expand its lawsuit against GEO Group, the private prison company that runs the Delaney Hall detention center, to include health and safety violations as grounds for closing it.
“This is not a federal facility, these are not federal grounds; it's a private facility, private workers, and they are subject to state and municipal laws,” Baraka said. The city has spent a year in litigation arguing that the company reopened the shuttered facility without proper permits; GEO says it holds a valid ICE contract.
State Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a separate suit alleging the company is refusing to let state health inspectors inside to verify reports of unsanitary and unsafe conditions.
Source: NBC News
Detainees in 33 states allege inadequate medical care in ICE facilities
Hundreds of people held in immigration detention across at least 33 states allege in federal court filings that the facilities failed to provide adequate medical care, according to an investigation by KFF Health News and the Associated Press.
Detainees said medications for high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and HIV arrived late or not at all, and that requests for help went unanswered for weeks. The filings describe untreated infections and cancers, rising blood sugar, collapses and seizures.
ICE held more than 75,000 people as of mid-January, up from about 40,000 a year earlier. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the findings. Its acting chief medical officer has previously said timely and appropriate medical care is both policy and practice.
Source: AP News