Week of October 1–7, 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.
USCIS runs 1,000-case fraud sweep in the Twin Cities
US Citizenship and Immigration Services said it reviewed 1,000 cases in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in what it called a first-of-its-kind operation, identifying 275 cases of suspected fraud. Forty-two were referred to ICE or resulted in notices to appear in immigration court, and four people were detained. No criminal charges have been filed.
Director Joseph Edlow said at a Minneapolis news conference that officers found marriage fraud, visa overstays, applicants claiming to work at businesses that could not be located and forged documents. He said the agency will run similar operations in other cities.
USCIS adjudicates green card, naturalization and humanitarian applications. The operation marks a shift toward using that adjudication work as a route into enforcement referrals.
Source: NBC News
Immigration judge rejects Kilmar Abrego Garcia's asylum application
An immigration judge in Baltimore denied Kilmar Abrego Garcia's request to reopen his 2019 asylum case. He has 30 days to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national with a US citizen wife and children who has lived in Maryland for years, entered the country illegally as a teenager. In 2019 a judge found him ineligible for asylum because he had been in the United States more than a year, but barred his removal to El Salvador because of danger from a gang that had targeted his family.
He was deported to El Salvador in error in March and held in prison there, then returned in June under pressure from a Supreme Court ruling and immediately charged with human smuggling in Tennessee. ICE is separately seeking to remove him to a third country, proposing Uganda and then Eswatini.
Source: AP News
California counties decline to use inspection powers over ICE detention sites
Three of the four California counties with immigration detention facilities have not inspected them, and the fourth has carried out only basic food reviews this year, according to records obtained by CalMatters. A 2024 state law gives counties authority to inspect privately run detention centers for health and safety violations.
In Kern County, where three detention centers operate, the health officer told a federal judge through an attorney that he has no intention of exercising the new authority. County inspectors have previously found mold, rats and other violations in jails and prisons.
A separate law from the first Trump administration lets the state attorney general inspect the facilities against national detention standards; that office published a report this year alleging deficient mental health care. Detention populations have grown sharply during the current enforcement surge.
Source: CalMatters
Labor Department rewrites the H-2A farmworker wage formula
The Department of Labor issued an interim final rule changing how Adverse Effect Wage Rates are set for H-2A agricultural workers in non-range occupations. The rates will now be drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey rather than the USDA Farm Labor Survey.
Most H-2A jobs will fall into five occupational codes split into two skill-based wage levels, assigned according to the duties performed for most of the contract period and the qualifications in the employer's job offer. The rule also applies a standard adjustment reducing the wage to account for employer-provided housing.
The department expects the resulting lower wage floors to lead farmers to hire about 119,000 additional H-2A workers. The rule took effect on October 2, 2025, with comments due by December 1.
Source: Federal Register
Supreme Court again lets the administration end TPS for Venezuelans
In a brief unsigned order, the Supreme Court paused a San Francisco judge's ruling that had barred Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from terminating Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. The court wrote that the same result it reached in May was appropriate here.
Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson said they would have denied the request. Jackson wrote a short dissent calling the order yet another grave misuse of the emergency docket.
Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for TPS in 2021 and redesignated it in 2023, then announced an extension through October 2026. Noem terminated both the 2023 designation and the 2025 extension in February. The ruling leaves affected Venezuelans without work authorization or protection from removal while litigation continues.
Source: SCOTUSblog
Thirteen arrested outside Broadview facility during Noem visit
Federal officials reported 13 arrests among people protesting outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois, while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem met staff inside. The crowd grew through the day, with some demonstrators angered by newly installed barricades separating them from the building.
Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol chief patrol agent for the El Centro sector who led operations in Los Angeles, was among the federal agents present. Agents also carried out raids in Chicago neighborhoods the same day.
Broadview has been the focus of protest since Operation Midway Blitz began in September. Confrontations there have repeatedly involved chemical agents and physical force against demonstrators.
Source: AP News
Florida man with TPS deported to Venezuela despite court protection
ICE detained Darian Maldonado Medina, 28, at a routine check-in in Tampa on September 5 and deported him to Venezuela weeks later, even though he held Temporary Protected Status. On the day he was detained, Judge Edward Chen upheld the extension of TPS for more than half a million Venezuelans, a group that included him.
Maldonado Medina entered through the southern border in June 2021, was issued an expedited removal order after failing a credible fear screening, and was released under ICE supervision. He received TPS in 2023 and re-registered in May. He also had a pending family petition filed by his US citizen mother.
He told the Miami Herald by phone from Valencia that officers said his TPS did not cover anything and that he should sign. His partner and their 15-month-old US citizen son remain in Florida.
Source: Miami Herald
Coalition sues to block the $100,000 H-1B fee
A coalition of religious organizations, health care providers, unions and higher education groups filed suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California to block the $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions. Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs, asked the court to halt the proclamation immediately.
The group said that without relief hospitals will lose medical staff, churches will lose pastors and classrooms will lose teachers. Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, said the policy tells talented people they are not welcome.
President Trump signed the proclamation on September 19, arguing the program has been used to replace American workers with lower-paid foreign labor. The White House later said the charge is a one-time fee on future applicants and does not apply to current visa holders re-entering the country.
Source: The Hill
Immigration agents adopt more forceful tactics across Chicago
Federal agents in Chicago have entered an apartment complex by helicopter while families slept, used chemical agents near a public school and handcuffed a member of the Chicago City Council at a hospital. More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested in the region since the enforcement surge began in September.
Residents, activists and elected officials say the tactics are provoking violence and raising tension across the city and its suburbs. Governor JB Pritzker said on CNN that agents fire tear gas and smoke grenades and make the city look like a war zone.
US citizens, immigrants with legal status and children have been among those detained. Illinois and Chicago sued on Monday to stop the deployment of National Guard troops to the city, days after a federal judge blocked a similar deployment in Portland.
Source: AP News
Chicago mayor bars immigration agents from using city property
Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order barring federal immigration officers from using city-owned property for their operations. The order covers city parking lots, vacant lots and other sites used for staging and processing.
City departments have five days to put the measures in place, employees must report violations immediately, and the order encourages businesses and community organizations to adopt similar rules on their own property.
Johnson said the city will not tolerate ICE agents violating residents' constitutional rights or the federal government disregarding local authority. The order follows Operation Midway Blitz, the enforcement surge ICE launched in Chicago in September, which Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker have both opposed.
Source: The Hill