Week of October 22–28, 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.
Advocates tell ICE that pregnant detainees were shackled during miscarriages
A letter sent to ICE officials and Senate committees documents accounts from more than a dozen women who say they were mistreated while pregnant in immigration custody, including being shackled and placed in solitary confinement, receiving poor food and being denied prenatal care.
"You have women who are talking about being shackled and restrained while they're actively miscarrying; you have women begging and pleading for things as basic as prenatal vitamins and being denied," said Eunice Cho of the ACLU's National Prison Project, who wrote the letter.
The ACLU, its Louisiana affiliate, the National Immigration Project, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and two other groups signed it. They want ICE to identify and release all pregnant women in custody and to stop detaining anyone known to be pregnant, postpartum or nursing. A report from Senator Jon Ossoff's office found 14 credible reports of mistreatment; DHS has denied the allegations.
Source: NBC News
AP documents ICE use of the WRAP full-body restraint on deportation flights
The Associated Press identified multiple cases in which ICE placed deportees in the WRAP, a full-body restraint device that immobilizes a person from shoulders to feet. Five people said they were held in it, sometimes for hours, on removal flights dating back to 2020, and witnesses in four countries described its use on at least seven others.
A Nigerian man said officers woke detainees in the night in September, shackled them, refused their requests to call a lawyer and put them in the restraints before a 16-hour flight to Ghana, though none of the group was Ghanaian. "It was just like a kidnapping," he told the AP.
Detainees call the device the burrito or the bag. A Missouri prisoner asphyxiated in a WRAP restraint in 2023, according to his autopsy. The Nigerian man is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit.
Source: AP News
Walmart stops making offers to candidates who need H-1B sponsorship
Walmart, the largest private-sector employer in the United States, has paused job offers to foreign candidates who would require an H-1B visa, a company spokesperson confirmed. Bloomberg first reported the change.
The decision follows the $100,000 fee the administration imposed on new H-1B petitions. The visa is valid for three years and can be renewed once for a further three.
The move signals how large employers outside the technology sector are responding to the fee, and narrows the routes available to skilled foreign workers who would otherwise seek sponsorship from a major corporate employer.
Source: CNN via WBAL
Trump cancels planned immigration surge in San Francisco
President Trump called off a planned surge of federal immigration agents in San Francisco, writing on social media that Nvidia president Jensen Huang, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff and others had called to say the city's future is bright and should be given a chance.
About 100 federal agents had been sent on Wednesday to a military base in the East Bay in preparation for the operation, and local outlets reported that agents were expected to raid Home Depot lots where day laborers gather.
Protesters had begun gathering across the Bay Area, including a pre-dawn crowd blocking the entrance to Coast Guard Island in Alameda, where agents dispersed demonstrators with what appeared to be a flash-bang grenade. Governor Gavin Newsom had prepared to sue over any National Guard deployment.
Source: CalMatters
Illinois governor creates commission to record federal agents' conduct
Governor JB Pritzker signed an executive order on October 23 establishing a commission to document what he called countless acts of intimidation and brutality against civilians during Operation Midway Blitz. The panel will keep a formal record of encounters between residents and federal immigration agents.
A day earlier former Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a separate project intended to identify masked immigration agents. Immigrant advocacy groups have been keeping their own tally of detentions.
The documentation efforts come as the city awaits a Supreme Court decision on whether the administration may deploy National Guard troops to Chicago.
Source: USA Today
USCIS proposes new EB-5 investor visa fees
The Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule adjusting the fees USCIS charges for filings in the EB-5 employment-based fifth preference category, the investor route to permanent residence.
The proposal would also write into regulation several elements of the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 and implement statutory requirements that Congress added under that law. DHS says the fees are needed to give USCIS the resources to meet the goals of the 2022 act and to maintain the integrity of the program.
Written comments are due by December 22, 2025. Investors and regional centers with pending or planned filings would face the revised charges once a final rule takes effect.
Source: Federal Register
Senators press Education Secretary over enforcement near schools
Senator Tammy Duckworth and at least six other senators wrote to Education Secretary Linda McMahon asking her to press immigration authorities to stay at least 1,000 feet from school property during enforcement operations, citing classroom disruptions in the Chicago area.
"Federal agents continue to use unwarranted, excessive levels of force around Chicago, demonstrating an alarming lack of care or regard for the health and wellbeing of children," the senators wrote, asking her to push Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to restore restrictions on enforcement in and around places of education.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin rejected the complaint, saying tear gas had been deployed because of violent rioters. The senators cited operations conducted close to school grounds while classes were in session.
Source: NBC News
Asylum seekers face dismissal over a fee they had no way to pay
Asylum applicants say they were told to pay the new $100 annual fee before October 1 or risk having their cases dismissed, but found no way on the immigration court website to pay it for a pending case. Advocacy groups are suing, arguing the rollout violates due process.
Paula, a 40-year-old woman from Mexico living in the Los Angeles area who applied for asylum in 2021 and whose case is on appeal, searched the court's payment options and found none that covered her situation. She feared deportation if she did not pay.
The fee was created by the reconciliation law enacted in July. Immigration lawyers describe the rollout as an unnecessary bureaucratic mess in which some people faced dismissal before a payment channel existed.
Source: Los Angeles Times
ICE says the shutdown ends its duty to admit members of Congress
ICE has told members of Congress that it no longer has to provide on-demand access to detention facilities, saying it lacks the staff and funding during the government shutdown. Lawmakers have long treated such visits as part of their oversight duty, monitoring conditions and speaking with detainees facing removal.
In filings before US District Judge Jia Cobb, the agency added a second argument: the access requirement was written into the appropriations laws that lapsed when the shutdown began. ICE says it is now operating on money from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which contains no such requirement.
Democratic lawmakers were already suing the administration over earlier refused visits. The position removes the main route Congress has for inspecting conditions in a detention system now holding record numbers.
Source: Politico
DHS finalizes rule to photograph all noncitizens entering and leaving the US
The Department of Homeland Security published a final rule allowing it to require that all noncitizens be photographed on entering or leaving the United States, and to require other biometrics from those who are not exempt.
The rule removes existing references to pilot programs and the limitation to particular ports, so biometrics may be collected at airports, land border crossings, seaports and any other authorized point of departure. DHS is also seeking comment on the collection process and on the costs and benefits of extending it to new modes of transport.
The rule takes effect on December 26, 2025. It extends facial image collection, previously concentrated on arrivals at major airports, to the full range of exits and entries.
Source: Federal Register
Border Patrol chief ordered to meet daily with judge over Chicago tactics
US District Judge Sara Ellis ordered Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, who is directing Operation Midway Blitz, to report to her daily following accounts of combative enforcement including the use of tear gas.
"They don't have to like what you're doing. And that's OK. That's what democracy is," Ellis said at the hearing, referring to people protesting against federal agents. "They can say they don't like what you're doing... But they can't get teargassed for it."
The order follows earlier directions from Ellis requiring agents in the Chicago area to wear visible badges and body cameras and barring certain riot control measures against peaceful protesters and journalists.
Source: Politico
ICE reassigns half its field office leadership in nationwide shake-up
The administration is reassigning at least half the top leadership across ICE's 25 field offices, according to a current and a former government official who spoke to the AP. The turnover covers the officials directing arrests and removals in cities around the country.
The plan involves moving Customs and Border Protection officers into senior ICE positions, expanding the role of an agency already responsible for the most aggressive operations in Los Angeles and Chicago. Border Patrol agents rappelled from a helicopter onto a Chicago apartment building during one recent raid and have run street patrols downtown.
Homeland Security and the White House declined to comment on the reassignments, saying instead that all parts of immigration enforcement are working as one team.
Source: AP News