Week of September 23–29, 2026

Proclamation 11069, signed September 18 and published September 23, extends for another 12 months the September 2025 order barring entry of most H-1B workers unless their petition is accompanied by a $100,000 payment. The restriction now runs until 12:00 a.m. eastern time on September 21, 2027.

The proclamation says the payment has been made for more than 700 petitions since September 2025, and that combined H-1B registrations by the largest IT staffing and outsourcing firms fell from 24,946 to 2,055, a 92 percent drop. Registrations for beneficiaries holding at least a US master's degree rose from 45.1 percent for fiscal 2026 to 66.1 percent for fiscal 2027.

A companion executive order, EO 14431, directs the State, Labor and Homeland Security departments to consult Commerce, Education and the Small Business Administration on H-1B filings, to weigh whether a sponsoring employer has laid off comparable US workers in the past year, and gives the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division 30 days to begin reviewing past labor condition applications.

Source: Federal Register

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new visa restriction policy on September 23 aimed at people who engage in or facilitate birth tourism to the United States. The policy rests on Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows visa denials on foreign policy grounds.

According to the announcement, the restrictions may be applied to owners, operators and managers of commercial birth tourism networks, visa "fixers" who coach applicants to lie on visa applications, foreign medical providers who knowingly assist such travel or the fraudulent use of Medicaid, and others who support the trade. Rubio said these networks charge tens of thousands of dollars to arrange births on American soil so the child obtains citizenship.

The State Department did not say how many people have been made ineligible so far. Visa records are confidential, so individual determinations are not published.

Source: U.S. Department of State

The administration told Congress on September 22 that it plans to admit 17,500 refugees in fiscal year 2027, primarily Afrikaners from South Africa, according to a notice obtained by the Associated Press. The State Department report said the new arrivals face land seizures and other persecution and would assimilate readily, and put the cost of resettlement at about $500 million.

South Africa's government has repeatedly rejected the claim that Afrikaners are a persecuted minority. Last year the administration first set the ceiling at 7,500, also mostly Afrikaners, then raised it to 17,500 through an emergency determination.

Resettlement agencies criticized the decision. HIAS, which said an average of 92,000 people a year have been admitted since the program began in 1980, called it a distortion of a program that historically served people fleeing war and persecution worldwide.

Source: AP News

Procurement records show Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking "mobile detention facilities" for Pennsylvania, described as vans operated by GTI, the transportation subsidiary of the private prison company GEO Group. The documents say the units would be used "until full" or until an operation ends, and that women may not be held in them for more than 10 hours. No standards on food, bathrooms or maximum time for men are set out.

The request emerged days after the Department of Homeland Security signed construction contracts worth more than $7 billion to expand detention in New York, Texas, Arizona, Florida and California, with further expansion announced in Colorado, Washington and Pennsylvania.

GEO Group's chief executive told investors in August that ICE currently has about 68,000 beds and is still working toward 100,000. ICE and GEO did not respond to NPR's questions about the vans.

Source: NPR

The Government Accountability Office reported that ICE and other agencies have wasted tens of millions of dollars in the rush to expand immigration detention, and warned the total is likely to grow. The review was requested by congressional Democrats.

Auditors found the Defense Department spent $2.85 million on tents at Guantanamo Bay that never housed a detainee because they failed detention standards. ICE bought 11 warehouses for $1.07 billion, then shelved the plan; it has spent $20 million on the seven it is now selling and must recover $707 million to avoid further loss. For the Florida site known as "Alligator Alcatraz," DHS reimbursed the state through a $608 million FEMA grant at $249 per detainee per day, 171 percent above ICE's usual $92 rate.

Congress gave ICE $45 billion for detention last year, but the agency still has no comprehensive spending plan. DHS said it would produce one by August 31, 2027.

Source: PBS NewsHour

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan entered a permanent injunction against ICE over holding conditions at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, writing in a 127-page ruling that the treatment of detainees there during the summer of 2025 was "inhumane and unconstitutional." He certified a class of detainees and described rooms so crowded that people slept sitting up or beside toilets.

Kaplan found that ICE deprived detainees of sleep, sanitation, food, water, medical care and access to counsel, and said it did so to punish them and induce self-deportation. He also said the agency had complied with his earlier orders only when convenient.

The new order keeps the earlier cap of one detainee per 50 square feet and adds requirements: pillows, dimmed lights between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., a legal phone call offered within an hour of detention, medical screening before entering a hold room and on-site medical services. DHS said detainees stay only briefly while awaiting transfer.

Source: Courthouse News Service

A US citizen was left bloodied on the roadside in Evanston, Illinois, on September 20 after immigration agents mistook him for a fugitive, according to Evanston police and witnesses. The man, who was not identified, told police his head, neck and teeth were injured and was taken away by ambulance.

A federal agent told responding officers that five agents in separate vehicles were looking for a man with a Chicago address and an arrest warrant. When the man refused to show identification, they tried to handcuff him, and released him after realizing he was a citizen. Police photographed his injuries and opened an investigation.

The Department of Homeland Security said officers encountered someone who "resembled the target" of a targeted operation and that he refused to identify himself. Witnesses told the AP the man repeatedly shouted that he was a citizen while being pinned to the ground. ICE reported nearly 51,000 arrests in August.

Source: AP News

Mario David Coronado Juarez, a 36-year-old Guatemalan national, died on September 20 after the car he was driving struck a tree in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during an attempted traffic stop by immigration officers. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Guatemala's consul general in Chicago identified him and said he was from Comitancillo, San Marcos.

The Department of Homeland Security said officers were looking for a different Guatemalan man with alcohol-related driving offenses and tried to stop the car to confirm the driver's identity. It said Coronado fled at high speed, that officers discontinued the enforcement action, and that they tried to render aid and put out the fire after finding the crashed vehicle.

DHS said Coronado had re-entered the United States after a 2021 removal by Border Patrol. Local advocates and Democratic lawmakers have demanded a fuller account of the pursuit.

Source: NBC News

The Supreme Court on September 25 paused a district court ruling that had blocked the government from using a modified version of the SAVE database to verify voters' citizenship. The unsigned seven-page opinion, issued 39 days before the November 3 midterm elections, said the lower court order "inhibits the Federal Government's efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections."

Under a March 2025 executive order, DHS and the Social Security Administration added records of US-born citizens and Social Security data to SAVE and allowed bulk searches. Judge Sparkle Sooknanan had found in June that the changes violated the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and administrative law.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, dissented, saying the majority ignored harms to lawful voters. Twenty-seven states use SAVE for voter verification.

Source: SCOTUSblog

Immigration officers spread out across southwest Kansas this week, stopping motorists around Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City to ask about citizenship status and parking near meatpacking plants and a large dairy, according to community organizers and local officials. Fear of arrest kept much of the largely immigrant workforce home.

The Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association said the operation disrupted processors, feedlots, dairies and grain companies and delayed shipments of thousands of cattle. Meatpackers slaughtered about 90,000 cattle on Thursday, down 16 percent from a week earlier, the Agriculture Department said.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin posted photos of five people he described as "some of the worst" arrested in Kansas and said ICE was not conducting worksite operations there. Residents believed dozens were detained; no official count was released.

Source: Reuters

Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Alex Padilla of California introduced the Immigration Warrant Reform Act, which would require immigration officers to obtain an administrative warrant from a supervisor setting out probable cause before detaining someone, and to hand that warrant to the person along with notice of their immigration court date.

The bill would also require a bond hearing within 24 hours of any warrantless arrest and a custody review by an immigration judge or district judge every 60 days, measures the senators say would prevent indefinite detention of people who pose no danger.

Republicans control both chambers, so the bill faces long odds. Some advocates said it still leaves wide discretion, because no warrant would be needed where a person poses an "imminent danger to the community," a term the text does not define.

Source: The Guardian

The Supreme Court on September 29 put on hold a Boston district court ruling that had declared unlawful the government's policy of deporting migrants to countries other than their own without notice or a chance to raise fears of persecution. The three liberal justices dissented. The court also agreed to hear argument in December.

Judge Brian Murphy had found in February that the policy violated immigration procedures and Fifth Amendment due process. Under it, people can be removed quickly to countries that give diplomatic assurances against persecution or torture; for other countries, deportees are notified and risk is assessed only if they raise it themselves.

Human rights groups count more than 25,000 people deported to 29 countries under the policy, most to Mexico, with others sent to South Sudan, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and the Central African Republic. Plaintiffs' lawyer Trina Realmuto said people may now be flown out before they can raise a fear claim.

Source: Reuters