U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

[phkrause]

ICE Wants to Know If You’re Posting Negative Things About It Online

ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.

https://theintercept.com/2025/02/11/ice-immigration-social-media-surveillance/?

[phkrause]

💼 Businesses push back on ICE raids

Photo illustration: Allie Carl/Axios. Photo: Brian van der Brug/Getty Images

Business groups are quietly urging the Trump administration to ease up on its plans for workplace immigration raids, but the White House is resisting, Axios' Brittany Gibson and Marc Caputo report. So far, the pace of workplace raids doesn't appear to have increased under President Trump compared to the Biden administration's efforts. But aggressive shows of enforcement are key to Trump's plans to crack down on illegal immigration. Why it matters: Just the threat of more raids has rattled several industries — such as construction and agriculture — that rely on immigrant labor, not all of it legal. "Rumors of raids are having more impact at this point than raids themselves," said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and workforce for the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). 🔎 By the numbers: Undocumented workers and those with expired work visas can be difficult to track across sectors of the economy, but some studies have given a glimpse of their presence. A recent Department of Agriculture study estimated that about 42% of America's farmworkers were undocumented from 2020 to 2022. About a quarter of construction workers across the U.S. may be undocumented, according to the National Immigration Forum, an immigration advocacy group. Keep reading.

[phkrause]

ICE deports Mexican national wanted in disappearance of 43 Mexican students

McALLEN, Texas ( Border Report ) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have sent back to Mexico a Mexican national wanted for kidnapping and organized crime in connection with the disappearance and abduction of 43 students in Mexico in 2014, the agency said Friday.

https://local.newsbreak.com/mcallen-tx/3846850185502-ice-deports-mexican-national-wanted-in-disappearance-of-43-mexican-students?

[phkrause]

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil will remain in ICE detention in Louisiana after first court hearing

Prominent Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil will remain in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana for now following a procedural hearing in New York, days after he was arrested by federal officials at his Columbia University residence in an attempt by the Trump administration to deport him.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/us/mahmoud-khalil-trump-columbia-university/index.html?

• 🎓 Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil will remain detained at an ICE facility. A judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's efforts to deport him, and said Khalil must be allowed to speak to his lawyer. Go deeper.

[phkrause]

💰 Scoop: ICE short $2 billion

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The agency charged with carrying out President Trump's mass deportation promises has warned Congress it is short a whopping $2 billion for this fiscal year, Axios' Stef Kight and Brittany Gibson report. 💵 Why it matters: Congress would send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) an extra $500 million in the stop-gap spending bill that passed the House and is being debated in the Senate. But that won't come close to covering what the agency says it needs just to conduct day-to-day operations through September — let alone fulfilling Trump's plans of surging hiring, doubling ICE detention space, and adding many more planes for deportation flights. That funding would come in a separate bill if the Senate passes the continuing resolution today to avert a shutdown. Keep reading.

[phkrause]

An ICE Contractor Is Worth Billions. It’s Still Fighting to Pay Detainees as Little as $1 a Day to Work.

The for-profit prison company GEO Group has surged in value under President Donald Trump. Investors are betting big on immigration detention. Its stock price doubled after Election Day.

https://www.propublica.org/article/geo-group-ice-detainees-wage?

[phkrause]

Columbia Apologized to Mahmoud Khalil in May 2024 for One-Day Suspension

Marco Rubio justified Khalil’s arrest using the same protest-related charges Columbia brought against him — but dismissed a day later.

https://theintercept.com/2025/03/19/columbia-mahmoud-khalil-suspension-gaza-protests/?

ps:It's just amazing how low these guys become after they get involved with the criminal-in-chief!!!!!

[phkrause]

Welcome to ICE Air. This month’s GOP spending bill — which has now been signed into law, thanks to Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — included a $485 million budget hike for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That will likely mean money for shadowy aviation contractors benefitting from the billion-dollar business of deportation flights — including three flights that carried migrants to El Salvador last week, even after a federal judge ordered the planes to turn back. 

For-profit deportations — sponsored by Trump’s donors. ICE uses private air charter companies — in some cases the same as those that ferry professional sports teams across the country — to carry out its deportations at an extremely high cost. (The flights chartered to El Salvador likely cost the government upwards of $8,000 per hour per aircraft.) At the center of this business, a Project on Government Oversight report revealed last week, is a New Mexico firm that has donated generously to Trump. 

Fight for the flights. Last year, CSI Aviation won a $3.6 billion contract for its ICE flights — although its main competitor, CIA-linked Classic Air Charter, says it was cheated out of the award and is challenging the contract in court. Also profiting off Trump’s mass deportations is GEO Transit, a subsidiary of the world’s largest private prison company and another key Trump donor.

Flying in the dark. Congressional reports alongside previous appropriations bills required ICE to disclose details about its private detention contracts and the private charter airlines that it contracts with to carry out deportation flights. But the new spending bill circumvented those requirements (which advocates say ICE was already flouting). Despite the exorbitant cost and history of abuses, much about these deportation flights has been kept secret. Now, critics say the agency will be empowered to operate them with even less transparency.

Contributing reporting by Katya Schwenk.

[phkrause]

I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-detained-us-immigration-jasmine-mooney?

US arrests more immigrants in February 2025 than any month in last seven years

Guardian data analysis shows administration transformed immigration enforcement in only a few weeks

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/13/us-immigration-arrests-february-2025?

I am a Palestinian political prisoner in the US. I am being targeted for my activism

Mahmoud Khalil

The Columbia graduate and green-card holder, held in Louisiana by immigration agents, dictated this letter to family and friends

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/19/mahmoud-khalil-statement?

[phkrause]

‘This is not true’

The two most important things to Jerce Reyes are family and soccer, and the former Venezuelan player’s tattoos reflect his passions. His lawyer believes the drawings are why he was accused of being part of a criminal gang and deported from the US.

[phkrause]

ICE decides gang links

Immigration agents are the "principal" deciders on whether a detainee is linked to a gang and should be deported immediately, border czar Tom Homan tells Axios' Brittany Gibson in an exclusive interview.

• If agents determine the answer is yes, Homan said, the Trump administration believes that detainee's rights to due process are limited.
• Not so fast, the Supreme Court said late Monday. The court signaled that detainees designated as "enemies" of the U.S. could be deported, but should have some way to challenge their removal.

🏛 Driving the news: Homan's comments to Axios came on a day when the Supreme Court began to sort out how far President Trump can go in his aggressive push to deport immigrants the administration sees as threats to the U.S.

• In a separate decision, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked a lower court's order that the U.S. return a Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the administration admits was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

🔎 Zoom in: Homan declined to comment on Garcia's case. He told Axios that Trump is simply "using the laws on the books" to quickly deport unauthorized and potentially dangerous immigrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.

• "People who are enemies of the United States don't have the same level [of] due process [as in] the normal process," Homan said.
• "People keep saying they have no criminal history," he added. "I've been doing law enforcement since 1984. Many gang members don't have criminal history. It's more than criminal history."

Between the lines: Homan said agents use several factors in determining membership in a designated terrorist gang such as MS-13 or the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua.

• Homan said factors include, but aren't limited to, tattoos or religious emblems: "It can be one factor or up to 20 factors. ... It's a case-by-case analysis."

[phkrause]

This letter by a school principal about ICE detaining her students is real

ICE agents detained three students, including a third grader, in Sackets Harbor, New York, sparking protests among the local community.

Claim:

An image authentically shows a letter by a school principal in Sackets Harbor, New York, calling for the release of three students and their mother from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Rating: True

In early April 2025, a letter purportedly showing a school principal's appeal for the return of her students from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody spread widely online. Social media users posted the alleged letter on platforms like Bluesky, Facebook and X. 

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-students-school-principal/?

ps:How sick are these people??

[phkrause]

Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Is “Only a Matter of Time”

The deportation flight was in the air over Mexico when chaos erupted in the back of the plane, the flight attendant recalled. A little girl had collapsed. She had a high fever and was taking ragged, frantic breaths.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ice-air-deportation-flights?

[phkrause]

Palestinian Student Leader Was Called In for Citizenship Interview — Then Arrested by ICE

Mohsen K. Mahdawi arrived at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester, Vermont, on Monday. A Palestinian student at Columbia University, he hoped that, after 10 years in the U.S., he would pass the test to become a naturalized citizen. 

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/14/ice-columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi-citizenship-interview/?

The Unusual Nonprofit That Helps ICE Spy on Wire Transfers

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are trying to track down undocumented immigrants, they seek out all the data they can find. In Arizona, they’ve found a special trove that’s ripe for abuse.

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/14/ice-surveillance-wire-western-union-arizona-trac/?

[phkrause]

No-Bid ICE Contract Went to Former ICE Agents Being Sued for Fabricating Criminal Evidence on the Job

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement just signed a contract worth $73 million with a firm whose executives are accused of taking part in a scheme to manufacture evidence against a co-worker during their time working at the Department of Homeland Security.

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/17/ice-deportation-contracts-us-advisors/?

[phkrause]

ICE is reversing termination of legal status for international students around US, lawyer says

The federal government is reversing the termination of legal status for international students around the U.S. after many filed court challenges against the Trump administration crackdown, a government lawyer said Friday. The records in a federal student database maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been terminated in recent weeks, often without the students or their schools being notified. Read More.

[phkrause]

ICE deports immigrant mother of an infant and 3 children who are US citizens, lawyers say

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have in recent days deported the Cuban-born mother of a 1-year-old girl — separating them indefinitely — and three children ages 2, 4 and 7 who are U.S. citizens along with their Honduran-born mothers, their lawyers said Saturday.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-mothers-deported-d8c5c0353c18e9ee0c228ea15e02d759?

[phkrause]

🔎 Palantir powers ICE

Palantir, the tech giant, is building a new tool to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with enhanced capabilities to support deportation efforts, Axios' Alayna Alvarez reports from federal documents.

• Why it matters: The company has been an ICE contractor for more than a decade, spanning the Obama and Biden administrations, but its new scope of work signals a larger role in immigration enforcement under President Trump.

⚡ Catch up quick: In mid-April, ICE awarded Palantir a $30 million contract to deliver a new platform — the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System (ImmigrationOS) — by Sept. 25, per federal records.

• The prototype will give ICE "near real-time visibility" on people self-deporting from the U.S., according to those records. It will also help the agency track and manage deportations, monitor visa overstays and target transnational criminal organizations, such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.

Zoom in: In a publicly available contract justification document, ICE says it has an "urgent and compelling" need for the new system — and that Palantir is the "only source" capable of delivering it in time.

[phkrause]

Turkish Tufts University student detained by ICE can be sent to Vermont, appeals court rules

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated and if she should be released. Read More.

[phkrause]

“They Actually Had a List”: ICE Arrests Workers Involved in Landmark Labor Rights Case

An immigration raid in western New York on Friday targeted a group of immigrants involved in a landmark statewide effort by farm workers to unionize.

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/05/ice-raid-farm-labor-union-new-york-ufw/?

[phkrause]

Airlines Are Collecting Your Data And Selling It To ICE. An aviation industry clearinghouse is collecting passenger information from billions of past and future flights and selling it to Trump’s immigration enforcers.

[phkrause]

ICE Duped a Federal Judge Into Allowing Raid on Columbia Student Dorms

The Intercept helped unseal an affidavit revealing how ICE got a “judicial fig leaf” to search two Columbia students’ dorm rooms.

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/14/yunseo-chung-ice-search-warrant-columbia-immigrants/?

[phkrause]

ICE Official Reveals Miserable Conditions for U.S. Immigrants at Djibouti Prison

A top ICE official said illness is common at Camp Lemonnier, with inadequate medical care and exposure to smoke from burn pits.

https://theintercept.com/2025/06/05/ice-immigrants-djibouti-illness-smoke-security/?

ICE Won’t Rule Out Retaliating Against Immigrants Who Testify in Free Speech Case

Government attorneys want to reserve the right to detain and deport witnesses who take the stand in a campus free speech trial.

https://theintercept.com/2025/06/07/ice-deport-free-speech-aaup-rubio/?

[phkrause]

ICE didn't raid LA elementary school graduation ahead of immigration protests

A TikTok user claimed parents ran out of a ceremony at Gratts Learning Academy when federal immigration agents showed up.

Claim:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided an elementary school graduation in Los Angeles in June 2025.

Rating: False

On June 6, 2025, a claim circulated online that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had raided an elementary school graduation in Los Angeles.

The claims circulated ahead of a weekend of protests in the city following ICE raids on June 6. The claim likely stemmed from a TikTok video (archived) uploaded by @justsayuhatebasketball on TikTok.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-elementary-school-graduation-protests/?

[phkrause]

⚡ ICE pauses raids on farms, restaurants, hotels

Photo illustration: Allie Carl/Axios. Photo: John Moore, J.Emilio Flores and Veronica G. Cardena/Getty Images, and Pool via Getty Images

In a surprise turnaround, ICE agents were instructed to pause most raids and arrests at farms, hotels and restaurants, the N.Y. Times reports from an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance. "Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels," a senior ICE official, Tatum King, wrote to regional ICE leaders on Thursday. 🔎 Between the lines: "The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump's mass deportation campaign ... is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose," The Times notes. The Department of Homeland Security's Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the guidance: "We will follow the president's direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America's streets." The email says agents aren't to make arrests of "noncriminal collaterals" — people who are undocumented but who aren't known to have committed a crime, per The Times. Investigations involving "human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK," the email adds. Keep reading (gift link).