Week of September 9–15, 2026

The Census Bureau on September 9 published a proposed rule that would limit the decennial census count to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, excluding people in the country illegally as well as those holding temporary lawful status. The proposal follows an order President Trump issued to the Commerce Department just over a year earlier. The next full census is scheduled for 2030.

The proposal also would drop questions on race and ethnicity that have appeared in some form since the first census in 1790. Census figures are used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives, draw legislative districts, enforce anti-discrimination law and distribute federal funds.

The document is open for public comment for 30 days. Civil rights groups said the changes would distort the data underpinning political representation and federal aid, particularly in states with large immigrant populations. In 2019 the Supreme Court blocked a Trump attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Source: Reuters

The Department of Homeland Security posted a proposed rule on September 10 that would eliminate the discretionary grace period of up to 60 days that lets certain temporary workers remain in the United States after their employment ends. Under the proposal, people in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN status, and their dependents, would be expected to depart as soon as the job that supported their status ends, unless they are otherwise authorized to stay.

The grace period has been in regulation since 2017 and is widely used by laid-off workers to find a new sponsor, file a change of status, or wind up their affairs before leaving.

DHS acknowledged in the rule that some workers would lose income and that referrals to immigration court would rise. Its analysis identified about 3,795 affected nonimmigrants, roughly 99 percent of them H-1B holders.

Source: Reuters

A divided panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on September 10 that the administration's policy of holding immigrants arrested in the interior without any chance of a bond hearing is unlawful. It became the ninth federal appeals court to reject the policy; two others have upheld it, a split that makes Supreme Court review likely.

Guidance issued in July 2025 extended mandatory detention, previously applied mainly to people arrested at the border, to immigrants arrested inside the country. Writing for the 2-1 majority, Judge Nicole Berner said mass detention without due process "harkens back to some of the darkest moments in our country's history," citing the wartime detention of Japanese Americans.

DHS said it remains confident in its legal position and has already asked the Supreme Court to take up the question. In the meantime, access to bond hearings varies by circuit.

Source: ABC News

The city of Denver, joined by Common Cause, UnidosUS and the League of United Latin American Citizens, sued the Department of Homeland Security and ICE in federal court in Washington on September 10, seeking an injunction barring armed immigration agents from polling sites during the November midterm elections.

The complaint relies on 18 U.S.C. 592, a Civil War era statute that makes it a crime for federal officials to station armed men at places where an election is held, with a narrow exception for repelling armed enemies. Plaintiffs point to incidents in San Antonio, Ventura County and Syracuse where they say ICE agents entered active polling places.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on September 1 that agents would enter polling places only in response to a threat or to serve a warrant. A DHS spokesperson denied that any polling place policy exists.

Source: Courthouse News Service

Common Cause and a Minneapolis resident filed a federal lawsuit on September 10 accusing DHS, the Justice Department, the FBI and other agencies of violating the First Amendment and privacy rights of people who observe and record immigration enforcement. The 94-page complaint seeks nationwide relief from a judge in Washington, D.C.

The suit describes encounters in Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey in which observers were photographed, followed, pepper-sprayed, reported to police or visited at home by federal officers, and draws on declarations from observers in Illinois, Maine and Tennessee. It also cites revocations of Global Entry and TSA PreCheck status and the use of administrative subpoenas.

Plaintiffs argue the pattern follows National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 and a related Justice Department memo linking interference with immigration enforcement to domestic terrorism. DHS said ICE respects First Amendment rights but will act when operations are obstructed.

Source: NPR

The administration let a decision deadline pass this week without terminating Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador, leaving roughly 170,000 Salvadorans able to live and work in the United States for now. DHS said it would make an announcement "at the appropriate time" and has not said whether it will extend the designation.

El Salvador received TPS in 2001 after a series of earthquakes. Advocacy group fwd.us estimates that more than 150,000 Salvadoran TPS holders contribute about $5.4 billion a year to the economy and pay roughly $1.5 billion in federal and state taxes, and that they have had about 150,000 U.S. citizen children.

The administration has ended TPS for more than 10 countries in this term, and in June the Supreme Court held that the president has broad power to do so. Advocacy groups are pressing Congress for an 18-month extension or a residency pathway.

Source: NPR

ICE arrested 50,925 people in August, a record and the third consecutive monthly high, according to DHS figures reported by NBC News. July saw 50,208 arrests and June nearly 44,000. The agency averaged about 1,600 arrests a day in August, up from roughly 1,000 a day before the administration set higher quotas.

Tactics shifted away from large branded city operations toward street arrests and cooperation with local jails and police, with activity in Houston, New York, Memphis, San Francisco and Atlanta. Texas recorded 10,331 arrests in July, compared with 5,787 a year earlier, and Florida 5,501, up from 1,938.

Data compiled by the Deportation Data Project show 73.5 percent of people arrested by ICE in July had no criminal conviction, up from 62.6 percent a year earlier. Detainer requests to local jails also rose.

Source: NBC News

The Justice Department announced on September 11 that it had secured the first deportation ever ordered through the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a tribunal Congress created 30 years ago and that no prior administration had used. Nazira Haji Zada, an Afghan woman living in Dallas, was removed to Afghanistan.

Unsealed filings show she agreed in August to concede the "alien terrorist" designation and waive her right to appeal, so the court's constitutionality and its secretive procedures were never tested. Those procedures allow the government to withhold classified evidence from the public and from the person facing removal, though the cases go before life-tenured federal judges rather than immigration judges.

Prosecutors alleged she supported a foiled 2024 plot by her son and son-in-law. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the case a win for national security and said the department would use the court more often.

Source: CNN

The Supreme Court on September 11 dismissed Genalo v. Black, a case set for argument on October 13 on whether noncitizens held under the mandatory detention statute are entitled to a bond hearing after a prolonged detention, and what the government must show to keep them locked up.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court the case had become moot. One petitioner's claim was already moot; the remaining respondent, identified as Keisy G.M., had been detained 21 months after an assault conviction, was released in 2022, and in late August received a pardon from New York Governor Kathy Hochul. The parties filed a joint stipulation to dismiss.

Sauer said the Justice Department intends to bring the question back in a new petition. The court left open a question it declined to resolve in Jennings v. Rodriguez in 2018.

Source: SCOTUSblog

An analysis of new government data by the American Immigration Council found that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ended the second quarter of fiscal 2026 with 12.1 million pending applications and petitions, a record in the group's dataset and a 7.2 percent increase over the same quarter a year earlier.

Completions fell to 1.5 million, the eighth consecutive quarterly decline and less than half the 3.3 million completed in the second quarter of fiscal 2024. Filings received dropped 45 percent year over year, while completions fell 44.5 percent.

Estimated time to clear the backlog nearly doubled, from 12.5 months a year earlier to 24.1 months, up from 18.6 months in the previous quarter. Approvals of employment-based adjustment of status applications rose from 21,924 to 41,979 between the first and second quarters, but delays raise doubts about using all 186,317 employment-based visas available this fiscal year.

Source: American Immigration Council

Two lawsuits filed in Manhattan federal court on September 14 seek to stop a DHS rule, announced in July and due to take effect that Friday, that broadens the grounds for denying green cards to applicants deemed likely to become a "public charge." New York, California and Illinois lead a suit joined by 22 states and the District of Columbia; New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and two counties filed a second.

Unlike the 2019 version, the new rule does not list which programs count, saying only that officers will consider receipt of any means-tested public benefits, including Medicaid, SNAP and housing assistance, and benefits received by family members such as citizen children.

The plaintiffs argue the rule exceeds DHS's authority under the Administrative Procedure Act. DHS says about 588,000 applicants undergo public charge review each year.

Source: Reuters

The DHS Office of Inspector General published a report on September 14 finding that detainees at the now-closed Florida immigration facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz" were repeatedly locked in metal enclosures of about 18 square feet, less than half the 37 square feet ICE standards require for single-person spaces.

Records reviewed by inspectors documented 79 instances between July 2025 and January 2026 in which detainees were confined in the cages for up to two hours. Staff described them as "calming areas," but inspectors found at least one use as discipline and noted the cages had locks. The report said such enclosures are unprecedented among ICE facilities it has inspected and do not align with standards for humane treatment.

Inspectors, who made an unannounced visit in January, also cited overcrowding, limited recreation, inoperable phones blocking calls to attorneys, poor food hygiene and detainee reports of limited access to clean drinking water.

Source: The Guardian