Gone in 90 seconds: an 'invisibilized' ICE is arresting more people than ever - "In order to sustain those numbers, they have to create more categories of people who can be subject to detention."
A Quiet ICE Surge That Unfolded 'Everywhere All at Once' This Summer [
ungated] - "Federal agents appeared as people carried out their everyday routines. People were detained en route to a soccer match. Leaving Sunday Mass. Having a drink at a nightclub. At national forests and outside polling locations."
Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this summer soared to record highs since the start of this Trump administration — with 43,000 in June, more than 49,000 in July and nearly 51,000 in August — as officials cut or narrowed the pathways to legal residency in the United States and expanded the pool of people eligible for deportation.
Federal agents appeared in nearly every corner of daily life, carrying out operations at hospitals and airports, outside suburban schools and along rural construction sites and truck stops. They fanned out from coastal cities in Maine to desert towns in Arizona, across the open plains of Wyoming and down through the southern borderlands.
In Republican-led states like Texas and Florida, where the swell was strongest, they amplified their reach through partnerships with sheriffs and state highway patrol officers. In Democratic strongholds, they intensified their activities despite laws meant to restrict them.
ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders - "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding thousands of detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, an unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them, according to current and former officials familiar with the practice."
As a result of the change, lawyers and relatives lost track of their clients and loved ones without explanation, which is especially concerning because detainees are frequently moved to new facilities before deportation, said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
"Families are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don't know where the person might be," he said...
ICE detention facilities held more than 65,000 people as of early July, the most recent available data. Around 30% of them likely have final removal orders, said Michelle Mendez, legal director at the National Immigration Project.
More people have been issued final removal orders after failing to show up for hearings in recent months because the administration's immigration courts have taken steps to make it harder to participate and to reopen such cases, she said.
"To me, it's just another iteration of disappearing people," she said. "Why would we do that in the United States of America? It's something we'd hear about in another country and be concerned about individual rights and due process."
Some with final removal orders also have legal protections against deportation to their countries of origin based on the likelihood they would be tortured or persecuted. Many of them are facing removal to third-party countries where they have no ties and their disappearance in ICE's system will make legal challenges harder, lawyers said.
Supreme Court green-lights Trump's third-country deportations - "The Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to resume rapidly deporting immigrants to 'third countries' and will consider the legal questions at a later date... The court stayed a February 2026 order that immigrants should have 'the right to meaningful notice' and should be able to raise concerns before being deported to a third country." (
Trump's shadow docket blitz hits a new milestone)
Mahmoud Khalil on his detention by ICE (
transcript) - "What is happening behind ICE detention gates is horrendous. And I believe that it is a stain on the U.S. consciousness... Most of them, at least the ones that were around me, were picked up from their ICE check-ins, from their court hearings or from their work sites. Once you enter these detention centers, you see a very different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice. But once you cross into these prisons, literally that door, you see the opposite side of what's actually happening in this country."
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