Tag Archives: Immigration

Atlanta Black Star News: Border Agent Accused of Drunkenly Invading Women’s Bathroom Before Assaulting Officers, Found Dead at 29

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A U.S. Border Patrol agent who faced criminal charges for assaulting police officers in California has been found dead, authorities confirmed Wednesday.

Isaiah Anthony Hodgson, 29, was discovered inside a Riverside County home, east of Los Angeles, on Friday, just days after a recent court appearance. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a call in Lake Elsinore around 12:45 p.m. on Aug. 22, where Hodgson was pronounced dead at the scene, NBC News reported.

No cause of death has been released. The sheriff’s office said the investigation is ongoing, though no foul play is suspected.

Hodgson had been arrested on July 7 in Long Beach after what prosecutors described as a drunken night that began in a women’s bathroom and ended in a confrontation with officers.

According to ABC7, Hodgson, who was carrying a handgun, was accused of entering the women’s bathroom of a Shoreline Village restaurant on July 7 and refusing to leave. When officers arrived, Hodgson reportedly “became agitated and physical with the officers.” One officer sustained injuries during the arrest.  

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed Hodgson was employed as a border agent at the time of his arrest. He had pleaded not guilty to three felony charges of resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. Hodgson had a preliminary hearing scheduled for late September, according to court documents viewed by NBC.

His death drew scrutiny online, as Hodgson has been involved in the chaotic June arrest of 20-year-old Adrian Andrew Martinez, a Walmart employee accused of impeding federal officers conducting immigration detainments outside of Martinez’s store in the Los Angeles suburb of Pico Rivera.

Many critics tied it to President Donald Trump’s ongoing push for ramped-up ICE raids across Los Angeles.

One Threads user captioned a local news clip, “Remember that ICE agent who harassed a brown U.S. citizen, then went drunk to Long Beach harassing a woman and fighting a cop? He’s now been found dead.”

The post racked up more than a thousand comments, many indifferent to Hodgson’s fate.

One user didn’t hold back:, “Normally I wouldn’t say this out of respect but in this case…the world is just a tad bit better off without him. Hopefully his dear leader won’t be far behind.”

A similar tone continued with another user adding, “Yeah, he knew he was guilty for his sins and couldn’t deal with his guilt. We’re going to see a lot of it!” another commenter added.

Hodgson’s arrest had already made headlines in Southern California. His booking photo circulated after Long Beach police said he was heavily intoxicated during the scuffle. Prosecutors noted his law enforcement position when filing charges, but CBP at the time only said it was “aware of the arrest” and pledged cooperation with local authorities.

The agency has not commented publicly on his death.

Good riddance!

Border Agent Accused of Drunkenly Invading Women’s Bathroom Before Assaulting Officers, Found Dead at 29
“Border agent accused of assaulting officers found dead at 29. Shocking details emerge. Click to uncover the mysterious circumstances. 😮…
Border Agent Accused of Drunkenly Invading Women’s Bathroom Before Assaulting Officers, Found Dead at 29

Washington Post: DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants

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The Department of Homeland Security is now barring states and volunteer groups that receive government funds from helping undocumented immigrants, according to a Washington Post analysis of updated guidelines and interviews with Federal Emergency Management Agency employees. The new rules also require groups to cooperate with immigration officials and enforcement operations.

Several disaster assistance groups, FEMA employees and emergency management experts said the new requirements in the department’s fiscal 2025 aid contracts would make it harder for nonprofits to help the most vulnerable people in the aftermath of a disaster. Some members of the national volunteer disaster group network also questioned whether the new requirements are constitutional and point out that they seem to violate some local and state laws that prevent asking about a person’s immigration status.

By accepting the federal grants and awards, the new documents state, volunteer organizations that help after disasters must agree to not “operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”

That could put groups that provide food, housing, mental health support and other assistance in disaster-stricken states in the position of having to verify aid recipients’ legal status before providing assistance, experts said.

“There is no historical context for this,” said Scott Robinson, an emergency management expert and FEMA historian who teaches at Arizona State University. “The notion that the federal government would use these operations for surveillance is entirely new territory.”

The affected contractors include faith-based groups and nonprofits such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross, which states usually rely on to set up shelters and deliver basic assistance. They often serve communities with large Latino populations, where people often have trouble getting federal aid because they are uninsured or live in multigenerational households so they can’t all apply to FEMA. They serve those who have lost their homes or incomes after a catastrophic event but are not in the United States legally. Such humanitarian organizations typically do not ask about religious beliefs, political affiliation or documentation status when offering aid.

The federal government first awards funds to states, which then bring in organizations once they have accepted the contract and its rules. The DHS document states an award recipient, such as a state, must make all contractors and sub-recipients follow its terms.

In a statement, acting FEMA press secretary Daniel Llargues said any recipient of a DHS or FEMA grant “is required to follow the DHS Standard Terms & Conditions,” noting most funding is awarded directly to states, tribes and territories.

Another new section of the document states all award recipients must comply with federal statutes that prohibit state and local governments from keeping information about a person’s immigration status from DHS. They are also barred from “harboring, concealing, or shielding from detection illegal aliens”; have to agree to “provide access to detainees, such as when an immigration officer seeks to interview a person who might be a removable alien”; and not leak or publicize an enforcement operation.

“This is likely to have a chilling effect on any undocumented person” seeking assistance, Robinson said, adding that it might even deter someone who fears their legal status may be questioned.

While the federal government has always had wide-ranging authority when setting conditions for grants, a review of contracts going back to 2016, the first year they were posted, found past DHS contracts for federal assistance have not had any language about undocumented immigrants. One FEMA official said the new regulations move away from past terms that focused on civil rights and “place more emphasis on exclusionary powers the government has.”

These standards are not just limited to nonprofits but could apply to all applicants, sub-applicants and even other federal agencies that work with FEMA, such as search-and-rescue groups, said a former senior FEMA official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter.

Officials at disaster volunteer organizations across the U.S., many of whom embed all across communities after major hurricanes, floods or fires, said they were caught off guard by the new conditions. Several members raised concerns that federal contracts cannot make nonprofits violate local laws that protect people’s privacy. The bulk of disaster volunteer groups that work with the federal government are also faith-based organizations, which some groups said could create constitutional concerns.

“We see this as a free-exercise issue under our First Amendment rights,” said Peter Gudaitis, the executive director of New York Disaster Interfaith Services. “First, the federal government has never attempted to tell the nonprofit sector who we can and cannot serve. Further, as a faith-based organization we have the right to determine who we serve.”

The new terms and conditions also target diversity, equity and inclusion policies, stating that the department’s awards cannot be used “to advance or promote DEI and/or DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) or discriminatory equity ideology.”

To meet the needs of the communities they serve, nonprofits often hire Spanish speakers and people of color, and Gudaitis and other members of the nation’s disaster volunteer network questioned whether the anti-DEI provision would affect this approach.

There are states and cities that don’t allow such organizations to ask about a person’s immigration status. In New York, for example, disaster workers can register anyone in any affected Zip code regardless of their citizenship.

These groups, represented by a broader umbrella group called National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, are grappling with the new requirements, said the Rev. David Guadalupe, the organization’s interim president who also runs Puerto Rico’s volunteer disaster aid group. Each group will have to make an independent decision as to whether they can and will abide by these terms when a state asks them to assist, he said. That could put many groups in a very difficult position, he said, and goes against an ethos to serve anyone in need.

“Their shared mission is to serve all disasters’ survivors with compassion and dignity, especially those most vulnerable, and to work together to help communities recover,” he said.

The network reached out to the administration on Monday about the new terms and is awaiting a reply, Guadalupe said. It is hosting a town hall next week to discuss the new policy and how its members “will proactively prepare for impacts” on the funds they rely on to manage disasters, according to an email obtained by The Post.

These groups often work with states through FEMA’s Disaster Case Management Program. In its description of the program, DHS notes, “without federal support, the state may be inundated and unable to address the size and scope of the needs or unable to sustain the length of time the services are needed.”

There are already strict rules surrounding federal assistance that states and subrecipients, such as volunteer groups and nonprofits, have to follow. These entities have to cooperate with compliance reviews and investigations; they are audited several times a year; and, according to the conditions, have to give “DHS access to examine and copy records, accounts, and other documents and sources of information related to the federal award and permit access to facilities and personnel.”

If a state rejects these conditions, an agency official explained, it would be ineligible for FEMA funds.

Nonprofits and disaster response groups worry that the terms could have a ripple effect on mixed-status households, where the parents might be undocumented but their children are citizens, which means they would be entitled to federal disaster assistance.

“So will our government now deprive a household with a citizen member of assistance because undocumented people live in the household, too?” asked a state VOAD chair who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “Is the federal government saying that a disaster case manager can’t even advise someone where to get help if they are undocumented or their family is? Is that really what we’ve come to?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/08/27/dhs-fema-undocumented-immigrants-aid-groups-grants

No paywall:

DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dhs-moves-to-bar-aid-groups-from-serving-undocumented-immigrants/ar-AA1Ll1Yi

Daily Caller: Abigail Spanberger Says One Of Her First Moves As Governor Would Be Rolling Back Cooperation With ICE

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Democratic Virginia gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger said one of her first moves in office would be rolling back Virginia law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Spanberger, if elected in November, has vowed to rescind an executive order issued by term-limited Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin that requires state police and local jails to assist ICE efforts in the commonwealth. The Democratic nominee’s pledge to scrap state law enforcement’s work with federal immigration authorities comes as ICE has conducted more than 4,000 arrests across Virginia since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term.

“I would rescind his executive order, yes,” Spanberger told the Virginia Mercury in an interview published Wednesday. “The idea that we would take local police officers or local sheriff’s deputies in amid all the things that they have to do, like community policing or staffing our jails or investigating real crimes, so that they can go and tear families apart … that is a misuse of those resources.”

Spanberger served three terms in the House of Representatives between 2019 and 2025 prior to running for governor. She notably opposed House Republicans’ comprehensive border security legislation known as H.R.2, the Secure the Border Act, in May 2023. The bill would have required the federal government to resume construction of the southern border wall, placed new restrictions on the asylum process and blocked illegal immigrants from the U.S. workforce by mandating employers to verify the legal status of their staff.

Republican Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP nominee for governor, torched Spanberger’s vow to not assist the Trump administration’s illegal immigration crackdown.

“Abigail Spanberger voted against the Laken Riley Act after Laken was murdered by an illegal immigrant,” Earle-Sears wrote on the social media platform X on Wednesday. “Now she says her first act as governor will be to stop State Police from helping ICE.”

“Abigail puts criminals over Virginians,” Earle-Sears continued. “Every. Single. Time.”

Earle-Sears has previously blasted Spanberger for organizing a campaign rally in April during which Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid participated. The northern Virginia sheriff has refused to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

Youngkin also excoriated Spanberger in a post on the social media platform X on Wednesday.

“In her very first act as governor, @SpanbergerForVA promises to turn Virginia into a sanctuary state for dangerous illegal immigrants,” Youngkin wrote. “@winwithwinsome promises to keep dangerous criminals off our streets.”

“Could the choice be any more clear, Virginia?” Youngkin added. “Your safety is on the ballot this November.”

The race between Spanberger and Earle-Sears has significantly tightened ahead of the final sprint of the November gubernatorial contest, according to a Republican-aligned Co/efficient poll released Wednesday.

The pollster found that Earle-Sears trails Spanberger 43% to 48% with 7% of voters undecided. The survey of 1,025 likely voters was conducted from Aug. 23 to Aug. 26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.06%.

“Earle-Sears is nipping at Spanberger’s heels in a race the Democrats thought they had in the bag,” a press release from the Earle-Sears campaign touting the survey’s results states.

A spokesperson for Spanberger did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Democratic Gov Nominee Says One Of Her First Actions In Office Would Be Scrapping ICE Cooperation
Abigail Spanberger said one of her first moves as Virginia’s governor would be rolling back law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

https://dailycaller.com/2025/08/27/abigail-spanberger-virginia-governor-ice-immigration-enforcement

Newsweek: Trump admin plans new time limit for foreign students in US

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The Trump administration is proposing new four-year time limits on student, exchange and media visa holders, as part of plans to tighten up immigration rules.

In a proposal filed in the Federal Register on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its intention to modify the F, J, and I visa categories.

“If enacted, this rule would create additional uncertainty, intrude on academic decision-making, increase bureaucratic hurdles and risk deterring international students, researchers and scholars from coming to the United States,” Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told Newsweek.

Why It Matters

Student visa holders have been a focus of immigration enforcement under the second Trump administration, with many having their legal status revoked and interviews for new applicants paused for several weeks. This latest proposal revisits a plan from President Donald Trump‘s first term.

What To Know

The DHS said that, unlike many other visa types, F, J, and I visas currently do not have time limits; instead, they require holders to adhere to the rules of their respective visas. Under the new plan, four-year limits would be imposed, aimed at stopping lengthy visa overstays.

The three categories cover foreign students, exchange visitors—such as summer workers, au pairs, and medical students—and those in foreign media.

The DHS memo stated that part of the reason for seeking the new limits was due to the “dramatic rise” in these visas, with F visas (used by international students) increasing from 260,000 in 1981 to 1.6 million in 2023.

J visas (used by some students, academics, medical professionals, au pairs and other such visitors) experienced a 250 percent increase between 1985 and 2023, rising from 141,200 to approximately 500,000, while I visas (for media) also doubled during the same period.

The DHS stated that this posed a challenge to its agencies when it came to monitoring individuals in the U.S. with such visa types, and that a fixed-term approach would be more effective in managing immigration numbers.

For student visa holders, under the new proposal, they would have to either apply for a change in status at the end of their term (i.e., for an H-1B or other work-based visa) or ask for an extension of their F-1 visa if they have not completed their studies. Similar parameters would apply to I and J visa holders.

The Trump administration’s efforts to withdraw legal status for students and hold up interviews at the embassy stage have faced and lost to legal challenges in recent months, with student and exchange visitor advocates arguing that these programs deliver significant benefits to the U.S. economy.

What People Are Saying

Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told Newsweek: “The proposed rule is yet another unnecessary and counterproductive measure targeting international students and scholars. It would require them to repeatedly submit additional applications just to remain in the country and fulfill requirements of their academic programs—imposing significant burdens on students, colleges and universities, and federal agencies alike.”

A DHS Spokesperson, in a statement shared with Newsweek: “For too long, past Administrations have allowed foreign students and other visa holders to remain in the U.S. virtually indefinitely, posing safety risks, costing untold amount of taxpayer dollars, and disadvantaging U.S. citizens. This new proposed rule would end that abuse once and for all by limiting the amount of time certain visa holders are allowed to remain in the U.S., easing the burden on the federal government to properly oversee foreign students and history.”

What Happens Next

DHS will now welcome comments and feedback on the proposals. When the idea was floated in 2020, over 32,000 comments were submitted, many of which were against the idea, which was subsequently scrapped by the Biden administration.

This makes zero sense to me. The longer students are here, the more educated & skilled they presumably become, and we should want them to stay longer … perhaps permanently.

Trump admin plans new time limit for foreign students in US
The changes would also affect exchange visitors and foreign media with temporary visas.

https://www.newsweek.com/student-exchange-visa-changes-proposal-trump-administration-2120179

Scripps News: Judge questions if Spanish-language journalist can stay in immigration detention without charges

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Judge questions if Spanish-language journalist can stay in immigration detention without charges
A judge questioned the legal basis for detaining journalist Mario Guevara after charges were dropped; his lawyers say ICE is punishing him for filming police. (Scripps News)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/judge-questions-if-spanish-language-journalist-can-stay-in-immigration-detention-without-charges/vi-AA1Lpjj9

Guardian: Judge blocks Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Ábrego García again

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Federal judge says man wrongfully deported to El Salvador cannot be expelled until October as asylum case proceeds

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Kilmar Ábrego García, who was already wrongfully deported once, cannot be deported again until at least early October, according to multiple reports.

CNN reported that the US district judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, scheduled an evidentiary hearing for 6 October, and said that she intends to have Trump administration officials testify about the government’s efforts to re-deport Ábrego.

At the same hearing, Ábrego’s lawyers informed the court that he plans to seek asylum in the United States, according to the Associated Press.

Ábrego’s case has drawn national attention since he was wrongfully deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March.

Following widespread pressure, including from the supreme court, the Trump administration returned him to the US in June. Upon his return, however, he immediately faced criminal charges related to human smuggling, allegations that his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”.

Ábrego, who is 30 years old and a Salvadorian native, was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday while awaiting trial.

But over the weekend, the Trump administration announced new plans to deport him to Uganda.

Then on Monday, Ábrego was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during a scheduled immigration check-in in Baltimore, which was one of the conditions of his release.

He is currently being held in a detention center in Virginia.

Ábrego’s legal team swiftly filed a lawsuit on Monday, challenging both his current detention and his potential deportation to Uganda. In court filings, they argued that the government is retaliating against Ábrego for challenging his deportation to El Salvador.

“The only reason he was taken into detention was to punish him,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney representing Ábrego, on Monday. “To punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.”

Later on Monday, Xinis issued a ruling temporarily barring the government from deporting Ábrego until at least Friday. On Wednesday, she extended her order until Ábrego’s current deportation challenge in court is resolved, according to ABC News.

It added that Xinis said she would issue a ruling within 30 days of the 6 October hearing, and also ordered that Ábrego must remain in custody within a 200-mile (320km) radius of the court in Maryland.

She also reportedly said she would not order Ábrego released from immigration custody, leaving that decision for an immigration judge.

Ábrego entered the US without authorization around 2011 as a teenager. According to court documents, he was fleeing gang violence.

In 2019, a federal court granted him protection from deportation to El Salvador. Despite that ruling, in March, he was mistakenly deported there by the Trump administration.

In court documents in April, the Trump administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation had been due to an “administrative error”.

Since then, Trump administration officials have repeatedly accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family have denied.

Judge blocks Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Ábrego García again
Federal judge says man wrongfully deported to El Salvador cannot be expelled until October as asylum case proceeds

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/27/kilmar-abrego-garcia-deportation-trump-asylum

Associated Press: US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes, advocates say

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Immigration advocates gather like clockwork outside Seattle’s King County International Airport to witness deportation flights and spread word of where they are going and how many people are aboard. Until recently, they could keep track of the flights using publicly accessible websites.

But the monitors and others say airlines are now using dummy call signs for deportation flights and are blocking the planes’ tail numbers from tracking websites, even as the number of deportation flights hits record highs under President Donald Trump. The changes forced them to find other ways to follow the flights, including by sharing information with other groups and using data from an open-source exchange that tracks aircraft transmissions.

Their work helps people locate loved ones who are deported in the absence of information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which rarely discloses flights. News organizations have used such flight tracking in reporting.

Tom Cartwright, a retired J.P. Morgan financial officer turned immigration advocate, tracked 1,214 deportation-related flights in July — the highest level since he started watching in January 2020. About 80% are operated by three airlines: GlobalX, Eastern Air Express and Avelo Airlines. They carry immigrants to other airports to be transferred to overseas flights or take them across the border, mostly to Central American countries and Mexico.

Cartwright tracked 5,962 flights from the start of Trump’s second term through July, a 41% increase of 1,721 over the same period in 2024. Those figures including information from major deportation airports but not smaller ones like King County International Airport, also known as Boeing Field. Cartwright’s figures include 68 military deportation flights since January — 18 in July alone. Most have gone to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The work became so demanding that Cartwright, 71, and his group, Witness at the Border, turned over the job this month to Human Rights First, which dubbed its project “ICE Flight Monitor.”

“His work brings essential transparency to U.S. government actions impacting thousands of lives and stands as a powerful example of citizen-driven accountability in defense of human rights and democracy,” Uzrz Zeya, Human Rights First’s chief executive officer, said.

The airlines did not respond to multiple email requests for comment. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which would not confirm any security measures it has taken.

La Resistencia, a Seattle-area nonprofit immigration rights group, has monitored 59 flights at Boeing Field and five at the Yakima airport in 2025, surpassing its 2024 total of 42.

Not all are deportation flights. Many are headed to or from immigration detention centers or to airports near the border. La Resistencia counted 1,023 immigrants brought in to go to the ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, and 2,279 flown out, often to states on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“ICE is doing everything in its power to make it as hard as possible to differentiate their contractors’ government activities from other commercial endeavors,” organizer Guadalupe Gonzalez told The Associated Press.

Airlines can legally block data

The Federal Aviation Administration allows carriers to block data like tail numbers from public flight tracking websites under the Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed program, or LADD, said Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for FlightRadar24.

“Tail numbers are like VIN numbers on cars,” Gonzalez said.

Planes with blocked tail numbers no longer appear on websites like FlightRadar24 or FlightAware. The tracker page identifies these them as “N/A – Not Available” as they move across the map and when they are on the tarmac. Destinations and arrival times aren’t listed.

Carriers have occasionally used LADD for things like presidential campaigns, but in March, FlightRadar24 received LADD notices for more than a dozen aircraft, Petchenik said. It was unusual to see that many aircraft across multiple airlines added to the blocking list, he said. The blocked planes were often used for ICE deportations and transfers, he said.

Of the 94 ICE Air contractor planes that La Resistencia was tracking nationwide, 40 have been unlisted, Gonzalez said.

Similar things happened with the call signs airlines use to identify flights in the air, Gonzalez said.

Airlines use a combination of letters in their company name and numbers to identify their planes. GlobalX uses GXA, for example. But in the past few months, the ICE carriers have changed their regular call signs, making it more difficult to locate their immigration activates, he said.

US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes, advocates say
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights reach record highs, the airlines running the trips have taken steps to make it more difficult to track the planes used to carry shackled people across the country and around the world.

https://apnews.com/article/ice-deportation-immigration-flights-f61941d31adf43a6a01cccc720f3bb01

CBS News: U.S. to resume “neighborhood checks” for citizenship applications

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The Trump administration is reinstating a long-dormant practice of conducting “neighborhood checks” to vet immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship, expanding its efforts to aggressively scrutinize immigration applications, according to a government memo obtained by CBS News.

The neighborhood checks would involve on-the-ground investigations by officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that could include interviews with the neighbors and coworkers of citizenship applicants.

The government investigations would be conducted to determine if applicants satisfy the requirements for American citizenship, which include showing good moral character, adhering to the U.S. Constitution and being “well-disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States.”

To qualify for American citizenship in the first place, applicants typically must have lived in the U.S. for three or five years as legal permanent residents. They must also not have any serious criminal records, and pass a civics and English test. The process is known as naturalization.

The Trump administration’s memo upends a decades-old U.S. government policy. While the neighborhood investigations for citizenship cases are outlined in U.S. law, they can also be waived, which the U.S. government has done since 1991, government records show. Since then, the government has relied mainly on background and criminal checks by the FBI to vet citizenship applicants.

The USCIS memo immediately terminated the “general waiver” for neighborhood checks, directing officers to determine whether such investigations are warranted based on the information, or lack thereof, submitted by citizenship applicants. Officers retain the ability to waive the checks, according to the memo.

The directive said USCIS officers will decide whether to carry out a neighborhood investigation by requesting and reviewing testimonial letters from neighbors, employers, coworkers and business associates who know the person applying for U.S. citizenship. 

The memo suggested that citizenship applicants should “proactively” submit testimonial letters, to avoid receiving requests for more evidence. The agency said failure or refusal to comply with a request for evidence could lead to a neighborhood investigation and “impact” applicants’ ability to show they qualify for U.S. citizenship.

While the Trump administration’s campaign to expand arrests of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally is frequently touted by the president and his top officials, its effort to tighten access to the legal immigration system has been implemented with less fanfare.

Over several months, the second Trump administration has frozen the refugee admissions program, ended Biden-era policies that allowed some migrants to enter or stay in the U.S. legally and added additional layers of vetting for legal immigrants requesting immigration benefits like green cards and U.S. citizenship.

In August alone, USCIS said it would more heavily scrutinize the “good moral character” requirement for U.S. citizenship and probe “anti-American” views and activities of those applying for green cards, work permits and other immigration benefits.

The Trump administration has argued the changes are needed to combat fraud and shore up U.S. immigration procedures that it believes became too lax and generous under Democratic administrations.

USCIS Director Joe Edlow, who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this year, said the new memo will “ensure that only the most qualified applicants receive American citizenship.”

“Americans should be comforted knowing that USCIS is taking seriously its responsibility to ensure aliens are being properly vetted and are of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well-disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States,” Edlow said in a statement to CBS News. 

But pro-immigrant advocates and critics of the Trump administration said its policies are sending a chilling effect to immigrants across the country, legal and illegal alike.

“It sounds to me like the idea is to create a more intimidating atmosphere that discourages people from pursuing naturalization,” said Doris Meissner, who oversaw the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton administration.

The now-defunct INS adjudicated citizenship requests until USCIS was created in 2003. Meissner said the government had largely discontinued neighborhood checks when she became INS commissioner in the 1990s because they were labor intensive and seldom yielded useful information from neighborhoods or other sources. She also said there are other guardrails in place to prevent bad actors from becoming citizens, including background checks.

“It was viewed as one of those anachronistic processes,” Meissner added.

U.S. to resume “neighborhood checks” for citizenship applications as part of Trump push to heavily vet immigrants
The Trump administration is reinstating a long-dormant practice of conducting “neighborhood checks” to vet immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/neighborhood-checks-citizenship-applications

Associated Press: ‘Leave our kids alone’: Schools reopen in DC with parents on edge over Trump’s armed patrols

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“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” [Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said, standing in a park about a mile from the Chicago skyscraper that features Trump’s name in large lettering. The governor said he would fight the “petty whims of an arrogant little man” who “wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents and score political points.”

Public schools reopened Monday in the nation’s tense capital with parents on edge over the presence in their midst of thousands of National Guard troops — some now armed — and large scatterings of federal law enforcement officers carrying out President Donald Trump’s orders to make the District of Columbia a safer place.

Even as Trump started talking about other cities — “Do not come to Chicago,” was the Democratic Illinois governor’s clipped response — the president again touted a drop in crime that he attributed to his extraordinary effort to take over policing in Washington, D.C. The district’s mayor, meanwhile, was lamenting the effect of Trump’s actions on children in her city.

“Parents are anxious. We’ve heard from a lot of them,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a news conference, noting that some might keep their children out of school because of immigration concerns.

“Any attempt to target children is heartless, is mean, is uncalled for and it only hurts us,” she said. “I would just call for everybody to leave our kids alone.”

Rumors of police activity abound

As schools opened across the capital city, parental social media groups and listservs were buzzing with reports and rumors of checkpoints and arrests.

The week began with some patrolling National Guard units now carrying firearms. The change stemmed from a directive issued late last week by his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Armed National Guard troops from Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee were seen around the city Monday. But not every patrol appears to be carrying weapons. An Associated Press photographer said the roughly 30 troops he saw on the National Mall on Monday morning were unarmed.

Armed Guard members in Washington will be operating under long-standing rules for the use of military force inside the U.S., the military task force overseeing all the troops deployed to D.C. said Monday. Those rules, broadly, say that while troops can use force, they should do so only “in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm” and “only as a last resort.”

The task force has directed questions on why the change was necessary to Hegseth’s office. Those officials have declined to answer those questions. Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Hegseth said that it was common sense to arm them because it meant they were “capable of defending themselves and others.”

Among their duties is picking up trash, the task force said, though it’s unclear how much time they will spend doing that.

Bowser reiterated her opposition to the National Guard’s presence. “I don’t believe that troops should be policing American cities,” she said.

Trump is considering expanding the deployments to other Democratic-led cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and New York, saying the situations in those cities require federal action. In Washington, his administration says more than 1,000 people have been arrested since Aug. 7, including 86 on Sunday.

“We took hundreds of guns away from young kids, who were throwing them around like it was candy. We apprehended scores of illegal aliens. We seized dozens of illegal firearms. There have been zero murders,” Trump said Monday.

Some other cities bristle at the possibility of military on the streets

The possibility of the military patrolling streets of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, prompted immediate backlash, confusion and a trail of sarcastic social media posts.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a first-term Democrat, has called it unconstitutional and threatened legal action. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker deemed it a distraction and unnecessary as crime rates in Chicago are down, as they are nationwide.

Trump suggested multiple times earlier Monday that he might dispatch the National Guard to Chicago regardless of Pritzker’s opinion, calling the city a “killing field.”

Pritzker and other Illinois officials said the Trump administration has not reached out to Chicago leaders about any federal initiative to deploy military personnel to the city to combat crime. They cited statistics showing drops in violent crime in Chicago and cast Trump’s move as performative, partisan and racist.

“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” Pritzker said, standing in a park about a mile from the Chicago skyscraper that features Trump’s name in large lettering. The governor said he would fight the “petty whims of an arrogant little man” who “wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents and score political points.”

Others raised questions about where patrols might go and what role they might play. By square mileage, Chicago is more than three times the size of Washington, and neighborhoods with historically high crime are spread far apart.

Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who also worked for the New York Police Department, wondered what the National Guard would do in terms of fighting street violence. He said if there was clear communication, they could help with certain tasks, like perimeter patrol in high-crime neighborhoods, but only as part of a wider plan and in partnership with police.

National Guard troops were used in Chicago to help with the Democratic National Convention last summer and during the 2012 NATO Summit.

Overall, violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of 2025, representing the steepest decline in over a decade, according to police data. Shootings and homicides were down more than 30% in the first half of the year compared with the same time last year, and total violent crime dropped by over 22%.

Still, some neighborhoods, including Austin on the city’s West Side, where the Rev. Ira Acree is a pastor, experience persistent high crime.

Acree said he’s received numerous calls from congregants upset about the possible deployment. He said if Trump was serious about crime prevention, he would boost funding for anti-violence initiatives.

“This is a joke,” Acree said. “This move is not about reducing violence. This is reckless leadership and political grandstanding. It’s no secret that our city is on the president’s hit list.”

In June, roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines were sent to Los Angeles to deal with protests over the administration’s immigration crackdown. California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and other local elected officials objected.

‘Leave our kids alone’: Schools reopen in DC with parents on edge over Trump’s armed patrols
WASHINGTON (AP) — Public schools reopened Monday in the nation’s tense capital with parents on edge over the presence in their midst of thousands of National Guard troops — some now armed — and large scatterings of federal law enforcement officers carrying out President Donald Trump’s orders to make the District of Columbia a safer place. Even as T…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/leave-our-kids-alone-schools-reopen-in-dc-with-parents-on-edge-over-trump-s-armed-patrols/ar-AA1LbwWn

Independent: They donated millions to Trump — now, ICE detention providers are reaping the rewards

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Private contractors run many of ICE’s largest detention facilities. Now, with a push to deport more and more immigrants, these companies stand to win big under Trump.

Two issues here:

  1. Congress must have the power to regulate and/or ban campaign activity by corporations and PACS. This will require a constitutional amendment.
  2. We need to stop the expansion of detention facilities for immigrants.

For many workers or organizations reliant on the federal government, President Donald Trump’s return to office has meant jobs, funding and entire agencies slashed, as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims to have cut $202 billion.

But one industry has seen exponential growth — and expects even more to come: immigration detention.

“Private prison companies have been so giddy since last November, about the prospect of making billions of dollars at the expense of every American,” Stacy Suh, director at Detention Watch Network, told The Independent.

And the companies made sure to help Trump get elected.

America’s two leading detention companies, Geo Group and CoreCivic, were among the Trump campaign’s most notable donors last year, with executives and subsidiaries donating a total of $2.7 million to the president’s campaign and associated political action committees.

CoreCivic even bestowed over $500,000 towards Trump’s inauguration this year, while Geo Group contributed to his 2016 inauguration fund.

Trump’s Big, Beautiful, Bill set aside an unprecedented$45 billion for ICE to boost immigration detention. As the two largest detention powerhouses in the U.S., both Geo Group and CoreCivic stand to win big.

As soon as Trump won the election last November, CoreCivic’s share price saw a huge spike, nearly doubling from $13.63 per share to $22.13 per share in just one week.

GeoGroup’s share price jumped from $15.13 to $25.05 in the same post-election period.

This is likely because the privately-run facilities house 86 percent of the detained immigrant population, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

Yet just 6 percent of Americans believe that ICE detention centers should be run privately, an exclusive poll for The Independent can reveal, with the majority saying facilities should be run by federal or state governments, according to Prolific.

Over 60,000 people are currently held in immigration detention across the U.S., according to ICE records seen by The New York Times.

That number has already jumped by 54 percent since Trump’s return, with average detention populations under the Biden administration around 39,000, according to TRAC.

But though the government may determine their future, the 20 largest ICE detention centers are all operated by private companies, according to TRAC’s data in January.

GeoGroup and CoreCivic are the leading operators, both in terms of facilities operated and their capacity. Other private firms, like Lasalle Corrections and Management & Training Corporation (MTC), also have contracts to run ICE facilities.

CoreCivic runs the biggest detention centre in the country — Adams County Correctional Facility in Natchez, Missouri, with over 2,100 detainees on average each day. The new federal facility at Fort Bliss may soon take the cake, however, with a capacity of 5,000 people.

Both CoreCivic and GeoGroup provide both traditional prison incarceration services, and immigration detention services, to federal and state governments.

But with a slowdown in incarceration and greater focus on rehabilitation in recent years, prison contracts have been drying up — and increased immigration detention contracts has become more foundational to their business models.

One of Trump’s first actions in office was also to end the Biden-era ban on private prison providers, allowing companies like GeoGroup and CoreCivic to once again contract with the Department of Justice.

When asked for comment about its reliance on punitive policies by the new administration to build its business, CoreCivic noted that it does not enforce immigration laws, or arrest anyone, or have any say over an individual’s deportation — but it acknowledged that Trump’s policies does provide it with growth opportunities.

“As the current administration is exploring all options available to them to address the increasing demand for detention services and capacity, we expect that those options will include the high-quality solutions CoreCivic provides,” Ryan Gustin, director of Public Affairs at CoreCivic, told The Independent.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for GeoGroup told The Independent that “simply put, our facilities are never overcrowded.”

But Freedom of Information Act requests by TRAC last month revealed that several facilities run by GeoGroup were significantly overcapacity on at least one day this year.

This includes GeoGroup’s Pine Prairie processing centre in Louisiana, which has a contractual maximum of 500 people but held 1,311 detainees at some point in 2025.

Immigration operations make up over a third of revenue for both Geo Group and Core Civic, latest financial reports show, making ICE their largest governmental partner.

“We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support [ICE’s] law enforcement mission, over seven different Presidential Administrations,” a GEO Group spokesperson told The Independent.

Geo Group has been awarded nearly $8 billion in federal contracts over successive governments, according to the federal database, in addition to state contracts.

Over half of this ($4.4 billion) was awarded by ICE for immigration detention services.

Meanwhile CoreCivic has been awarded over $8.3 billion in federal contracts over time, with a quarter ($2 billion) of those being ICE contracts to run detention facilities.

“ICE’s budget now is larger than many militaries around the world, while our hospitals and schools remain underfunded, and people are losing their access to health care and food benefits,” said Suh.

The Independent contacted ICE for comment for this article but did not get a response.

Federal contracts from ICE have been steadily increasing since Trump’s first term (with for a brief time during the peak of the pandemic), according to the federal spending database, rising from $137.5 million awarded in 2016 to $463.4 million in 2025 so far.

ICE contracts awarded since January alone include $353.5 million to GeoGroup, $148 million to CoreCivic, and $313 million to CSI Aviation — ICE’s deportation flight contractor.

“There is more and more incentivization to cage people in immigration detention. The more people that they detain, the more their business grows,” Suh said. “Financial Incentives are really the bedrock of incarceration.”

And now, documents seen by The Washington Post reveal that ICE is planning to more than double detention capacity, from around 50,000 to more than 107,000 by January 2026.

These plans include opening or expanding 125 facilities before the end of the year – with over $1 billion in contracts each year between CoreCivic and GeoGroup, according to the Post’s analysis of ICE documents.

Already, both detention giants have seen a flood of new or amendedcontracts and have opened up new facilities to expand their capacity.

What’s more, ICE has issued nine of these contracts without allowing competitive bids, citing a national emergency at the Mexico border — meaning that CoreCivic secured the deal to reopen its contentiousLeavenworth facility without competition, according to PBS.

“We stay in regular contact with ICE and all our government partners to understand their changing needs, and we work within their established procurement processes. It is our policy to respect these processes,” Gustin told The Independent of CoreCivic’s contracts.

Since January alone, several facilities have been opened up to hold more immigrants in detention as ICE ramps up its raids.

In the Michigan town of Baldwin, former prison North Lake Correctional Facility has now reopened as an immigration center operated by Geo Group, to the tune of $70 million in annual revenue. The 1,800-bed facility opened in June despite facing significant pushback from residents and local protests.

And just last week, a tense dispute broke out at a local board meeting in Mason, Tennessee, over the reopening of a CoreCivic facility as an immigration detention center. Residents crowded the meeting and chanted outside in protest of the contract, which was ultimately approved, according to reports in the Tennessee Lookout.

“If ICE expansion plans are fully realized, that’s a massive shift in resources. It’s also a massive transformation in the very fabric of American society and how it operates,” Suh told The Independent.

“Communities across the country are rightly outraged about detention expansion happening on their doorstep. People are saying, ‘No, we don’t want detention in our community. We don’t want our neighbors to be torn apart away from their loved ones’.”

They donated millions to Trump, now ICE detention providers are reaping the rewards
Private contractors run many of ICE’s largest detention facilities. Now, with a push to deport more and more immigrants, these companies stand to win big under Trump. Alicja Hagopian reports.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-donors-ice-immigration-detention-private-funding-b2812474.html