Week of September 3–9, 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.
Angola prison opens an ICE unit that Noem says is meant to encourage self-deportation
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said federal authorities deliberately chose the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola to hold immigration detainees in order to encourage people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily. She spoke on the grounds beside a new sign reading Louisiana Lockup.
Officials said 51 people were already held in the complex, which Noem described as housing some of the worst ICE detainees. Governor Jeff Landry said he expects it to reach capacity, with more than 400 people arriving over the following months.
The unit is enclosed by fencing topped with five rows of barbed wire and overlooked by a guard tower. Officials pointed to large alligators in an adjacent lake and to forests full of bears nearby.
Source: AP News
USCIS to hire armed special agents with arrest powers
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will add its own law enforcement officers, who will be able to carry firearms, make arrests and execute search and arrest warrants. The agency said the special agents will be empowered to investigate, arrest and present for prosecution people who violate immigration law.
The change is a significant departure for an agency that has been kept separate from enforcement. USCIS adjudicates applications and conducts interviews for green cards, naturalization and humanitarian programs.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem granted the authorities in a final rule that takes effect 30 days after publication. Applicants attending USCIS interviews will now be dealing with an agency that has its own arrest capability.
Source: NBC News
USCIS director says the citizenship test will be harder and may require an essay
Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said at an event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies that the naturalization test is too easy and allows applicants to be coached through a process for which they may not qualify. He said the passing bar will rise and that applicants may be asked to write an essay on what becoming American would mean to them.
The current test requires six correct answers out of ten questions drawn from a published list of 100, with the specific questions chosen by the adjudicating officer. Applicants must also demonstrate basic English.
Edlow said he does not want a test that only highly educated applicants could pass. The changes do not appear imminent. USCIS said the previous week that it would resume interviewing applicants' neighbors and coworkers.
Source: Politico
Board of Immigration Appeals rules bond unavailable to anyone who entered without inspection
The Board of Immigration Appeals held that anyone in removal proceedings who entered the United States without inspection is not entitled to a bond hearing before an immigration judge, making their detention mandatory.
Under the previous understanding, a person who entered without authorization but could show more than two years of residence could ask a judge for release on bond. The board's decision removes that option and could subject millions of people to mandatory detention.
The ruling follows the administration's reinterpretation of the same provision two months earlier, which produced a wave of arrests at routine court hearings and check-ins involving people whom immigration judges had previously found to pose no danger or flight risk. It conflicts with recent federal court decisions holding that the expansion violates due process.
Source: Politico
Judge restores TPS for roughly 900,000 Venezuelans and Haitians
Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California ruled that the administration cannot strip Temporary Protected Status from nearly a million Venezuelans and Haitians already in the United States. In a 69-page opinion he described Secretary Kristi Noem's terminations as arbitrary, capricious and beyond her authority, writing that the revocation was unprecedented in its manner and speed and violates the law.
The ruling restores the extensions granted under the previous administration, running to October 2026 for Venezuelans and February 2026 for Haitians. The Department of Homeland Security had already accepted the Haitian date in July after a separate ruling in New York.
More than 600,000 Venezuelans in the country depend on the status, many of them in South Florida.
Source: Miami Herald
475 detained in raid at Hyundai battery plant construction site in Georgia
Immigration authorities said they detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, in a raid on the Hyundai manufacturing complex near Ellabell, Georgia. Steven Schrank, the lead Homeland Security Investigations agent in the state, called it the largest single-site enforcement operation in the agency's two-decade history and said it followed a months-long investigation into alleged unlawful hiring.
Agents concentrated on a plant still under construction where Hyundai and LG Energy Solution are building a battery factory. The adjacent electric vehicle plant, which opened a year ago at a cost of $7.6 billion, employs about 1,200 people.
The site sits about 25 miles west of Savannah and has been described by Governor Brian Kemp as the state's largest economic development project.
Source: AP News
President posts image threatening a Chicago immigration crackdown
President Trump posted an apparently AI-generated image of himself before the Chicago skyline with helicopters and flames, captioned Chipocalypse Now, alongside a message saying he loves the smell of deportations in the morning and that Chicago is about to find out why it is called the Department of War.
The post referenced an executive order signed the previous day renaming the Defense Department. It came as Illinois officials warned that troops, ICE agents and other federal officers could be sent to the city.
Governor JB Pritzker responded that the president is threatening to go to war with an American city, that it is not a joke, and that Illinois will not be intimidated.
Source: NBC News
Supreme Court lifts limits on immigration stops in the Los Angeles area
The Supreme Court paused Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong's July 11 order, which had barred agents in the Central District of California from making immigration stops without reasonable suspicion and from resting that suspicion on apparent race or ethnicity, use of Spanish or accented English, presence where day laborers gather, or work in occupations such as landscaping and construction.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, concurring, wrote that judges are not appointed to make policy calls and serve only to ensure the executive acts within the Constitution and federal statutes.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in a 21-page opinion joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, calling the order a grave misuse of the emergency docket and writing that no one should have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job.
Source: SCOTUSblog
State Department requires visa applicants to interview in their country of residence
The State Department announced that, effective immediately, nonimmigrant visa applicants should schedule interviews at the U.S. embassy or consulate in their country of nationality or residence, and must be able to demonstrate residence where they apply.
The notice warned that applicants who book appointments elsewhere may find it more difficult to qualify, and that fees will not be refunded and cannot be transferred.
The requirement applies to short-term visas for tourists as well as business travelers, students and temporary workers. It is expected to lengthen visa wait times that are already long at many posts.
Source: Forbes
ICE drops the pre-arrest worksheet officers used for more than 15 years
Officers in ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division are no longer required to complete a field operations worksheet before making an arrest, according to six current and former ICE and Department of Homeland Security officials. The form recorded a target's name, appearance, known addresses, employment, immigration history and any criminal record, and went to a supervisor for approval.
Darius Reeves, former director of the agency's Baltimore field office, and two former DHS officials said the worksheet had been required for nearly every arrest the division made, with the sole exception of calls to assist local police.
One former official said it is hard to complete a worksheet that says only to meet in a Home Depot parking lot. The change accompanies the shift from targeted arrests to street operations.
Source: NBC News
USCIS director says anti-American screening targets terrorism, not political views
Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the policy allowing officers to weigh whether an applicant has endorsed, promoted, supported or otherwise espoused anti-American, terrorist or antisemitic views is not designed to reach political beliefs but to identify support for terrorist activity.
The policy was announced in August and applies to decisions on green cards and other benefits. Critics have said it gives adjudicators wide latitude to refuse applications on subjective grounds, and the agency has not defined what counts as anti-American.
In the same interview Edlow described problems he sees with a training program popular with international students and outlined his thinking on changing the naturalization process, through which hundreds of thousands of people become citizens each year.
Source: AP News